


1989

by abluevixen (knightofbows)



Series: Album Series [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, EveryoneLives!AU, F/F, F/M, Hale Pack, M/M, McCall Pack, No Season 4, POV Lydia Martin, POV Stiles Stilinski, True Alpha Scott McCall, nontraditional songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-09 23:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 63,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3268637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofbows/pseuds/abluevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through circumstances and necessity, Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin become best friends after living together through their last year of high school. They decide they've had enough supernatural calamity, and after graduation, move to New York for university--as far away from Beacon Hills as possible. Behind them lay suffering, haunting memories, regret, and heartbreak at the hands of Derek and Cora Hale. But home is home, and there are plenty of things they can't run away from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Track 1: Welcome to New York

**Author's Note:**

> This was a challenge to myself with strict parameters. I haven't written fanfiction in years.
> 
> First: work as much within canon as possible, and any changes must be plausibly supported by evidence within the canon.  
> Second: fit as many lyrics into the story as possible without turning it into a stereotypical 'song fic.'
> 
> Underlined words and phrases are used lyrics.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Lydia think they're off to a good start in New York, both looking forward to school and what the city has to offer, neither looking back at the Hales they're so desperately running away from. Until Lydia screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artwork by the amazing [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/). It was made completely independently of my fic, but it was just so perfect, I asked for permission to include it--to which the answer was yes. :)

 (art by [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy,tumblr.com))

 

New York, new start.

“Stiles.”

“Hmm?”

“When are you going to start sleeping in your own bed?”

“The apartment makes weird noises.”

Lydia huffed, and Stiles felt more than heard her turn over. He also felt more than anything else how annoyance radiated off of her. She must have been glaring at him—the spot between his shoulder blades itched. She rested her palm in that very spot, as if she knew the effect she had on him.

“I’m not used to it yet,” Stiles offered as an excuse, a placation. He didn’t have to ask, but the unspoken question was there anyway: _Can I stay?_

“You’ll get there,” she said. _Of course you can._ She swept her nails against him in two swoops, then turned to face away from him, their backs to each other. “But seriously, Stiles, it’s been two weeks. If I’d known we’d be bunking, I wouldn’t have bothered with a two bedroom.”

“We’re not _bunking_ ,” Stiles muttered. “That would imply we’re sharing a room. We’re not; we’re roommates. Sometimes, we share a bed—”

“Every night since we’ve arrived.”

 “—because the apartment makes weird noises. And as much as weird has been the token state of our lives, this is an unfamiliar weird.”

Lydia waited a beat before saying, “We’d know, you know.”

“Know what?”

“If something was wrong.”

It was Stiles’ turn to huff. “It’s been quiet since we moved, right?” The voices. The whispers. What she screamed to hear. She predicated death, not danger; Stiles wasn’t going to correct her.

“…yeah.”

“Then it’s just the apartment.”

“Yeah.”

He knew he’d been pushing his luck, crashing on the vacant side of her bed. It hadn’t been an issue back in Beacon Hills, not really. Between the voices in Lydia’s head, and the nightmares that robbed Stiles of sleep, they’d both needed the immediate company—just someone there to help quiet their screaming. They rarely touched unless necessary, but mornings found them better rested together than apart.

Stiles tossed the covers off of himself. Across the hall was a perfectly good bed with perfectly good pillows and sheets and a hella cozy blanket. New York was, literally, across the country from everything that had ever hunted and haunted Stiles and Lydia. Thousands of miles separated them from the Nemeton and all it drew to Beacon Hills. Fireflies were innocent here. The half-heard conversations were the neighbors talking a bit too loud. The only thing magical, it seemed, was the city itself, and how long Lydia’s patience had lasted since they’d moved.

But before he could climb out of bed, Lydia, never facing him, grabbed his wrist. “Lay down,” she said. “You can sleep in your own bed tomorrow night.”

Stiles stared at her, heart racing, and traced the waves of her strawberry-blonde hair with his eyes, counting the gentle curves of her locks. Counting. A defense mechanism against the anxiety forever clawing at his chest like a rabid animal. Like a…caged wolf. It calmed him before he even realized he’d been stressed. He’d gone to it without thinking about it. He let out a breath, and slipped his wrist from Lydia’s grasp to give her hand a squeeze. “Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”

He settled back down, and released her hand. But instead of facing away from Lydia, he turned toward her. He counted pieces of her hair until he fell asleep.

 

###

 

They received the news just before senior year: Lydia had been accepted into Columbia University. She grinned when Stiles kissed her forehead and told her congratulations.

Within the week, Stiles’ acceptance letter from NYU arrived in the mail. He blushed when Lydia kissed his cheek and told him she was proud of him. Lydia Martin, genius banshee, proud of him, spastic human Stiles Stilinski. Who would have thought?

It couldn’t be more perfect. Their schools were close enough that they could rent an apartment together, and university would be a plausible excuse to escape Beacon Hills. It was a way to leave the Hales behind without admitting it.

No one would understand why they needed to leave. Everyone would try to guilt them into staying. Stiles dreaded the betrayal and hurt he’d see in Scott’s expression. Lydia couldn’t face Jordan. And some fights, they’d come to learn, just weren’t worth fighting. Stiles and Lydia agreed to keep the contents of their acceptance letters to themselves.

They would keep New York their secret until the last possible moment.

But that didn’t stop the Sheriff from taking the two of them out to a celebratory dinner.

 

###

 

Despite facing down alpha werewolves, darachs, kanimas, and evil spirits, Stiles was a little overwhelmed when he got off the plane. The sheer amount of _movement_ was enough to send his heart racing. Muttered apologies for accidental collisions and shoulder-brushes fell from his lips as frequently as heavy city air filled his lungs. Vehicle exhaust, food, _noise_. It was the furthest he’d ever been from home and his first time in the city. Thankfully, Lydia seemed to know what she was doing, and after collecting their luggage, he followed her to where she hailed a cab.

A yellow car pulled up beside them within moments of Lydia extending her hand.

He supposed that with him in Lydia’s company, the driver didn’t see a need to offer any help with their bags; so Stiles hefted one piece of luggage after another into the cab in the most exhausting game of Tetris of his life. He made sure to scuff Lydia’s luggage as little as possible, and she noticed—she didn’t bother to warn him about its value while he packed the trunk.

Once he climbed in the back seat, Lydia gave the driver the address of their apartment. Washington Heights was a place Stiles had only seen through brochures and websites, but Mr. and Mrs. Martin assured him and his dad that it was a really good part of town; it was almost equidistant from each of their schools; and they’d only have to take two connecting trains to get to their staples for living. Stiles’ own research supported their claims. But the Martins went a step further and offered to furnish the apartment, so Stiles’ and Lydia’s moving would only be their personal necessities, much of which could be shipped once they were there. Truth be told, Stiles was excited, even while his bouncing leg threatened to wear a hole in the floorboard.

Lydia placed a hand on his knee, and he stilled beneath the warmth of her touch. He gave a sheepish grin in response to her raised eyebrow and chuckled when she just pursed her lips. She squeezed his leg. “You good?” she asked, smiling softly.

“Yeah,” Stiles answered. “I’m excited.” He forced himself to lean against the back seat and watched the passing city through the window. The buildings were so dizzyingly high, Stiles couldn’t see their tops even with his forehead against the glass. He had no idea how he could be expected to focus on something as boring as _lectures_ and _homework_ when he was in New York City. “When do your classes start, again?”

“Ten days,” she said. “And you have a week.”

“That’ll be enough time to settle in, right? I mean, we already figured out subway routes and where our classes actually _are_ on campus, but I think I want to run it a few times to get familiar before the semester starts and—” He stopped himself when Lydia pulled her phone from her bag. Her perfectly manicured thumb swiped and tapped and scrolled until she turned the screen to face him. It was so close, he had to lean back to see it properly. But there, securely in Lydia Martin’s smart phone, was a detailed list of everything they needed to accomplish within the next seven to ten days, and what days they were to accomplish them.

“You made an itinerary,” he said, smirk pulling at his lips.

“I made an itinerary.”

“From when I kept you up all night that one time.”

“Which one time?” she asked, teasing.

“You know,” he said with a laugh, “I don’t even remember half of that night. It’s all kind of a—” He waved his hand vaguely. “—a blur.”

It had been right after he crashed from the Nogitsune, the slump that followed a crisis, the emotionally catatonic state that came with watching himself kill people. He’d thought his ramblings had been borderline insane during those weeks following his possession, had felt his grip on reality come and go. Lydia had been the only one to look at him without fear, or pity, or resentment. Despite how a demon wearing his face kidnapped and psychologically tormented her, she still knew and believed Stiles to be himself. And Stiles clung to that. So instead of focusing on the people he’d killed, instead of berating himself for being the reason Allison and Isaac fled to France with Chris Argent, instead of suffering Scott’s infinitely wounded face, as if he couldn’t quite forgive Stiles for running him through with a sword, Stiles had thrown himself into planning his future. Lydia, bless her, hadn’t only endured his ravings, but had taken his intentions to heart and organized it all.

“It was a little disjointed, but that’s why I took notes. In fact,” she added with a grin, “I’m pretty sure my notes are only the reason your grades were high enough for you to even consider NYU.”

Stiles was filled with such warmth, he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from grappling Lydia in a bear hug. God, how was this his life? “Promise me that if we’re both still single by the time we’re thirty, you’ll marry me.”

Lydia took her phone back to scroll through its contents. She didn’t even look at him as she scoffed, “Not on your life, Stilinski.”

 

###

 

Living with Lydia Martin was a fantasy Stiles had held in his heart since third grade. But once werewolves became a thing existing in Stiles’ reality, his priorities were forced to shift. Surviving and keeping those he loved safe, the highest of them, with completing high school a close second. His ten year plan with Lydia became a fifteen year plan which became…this. This culmination of everything that had happened and everything they had become.

Living with Lydia in New York was hardly any different than living with Lydia in Beacon Hills.

Lydia liked her food fresh, organic if possible, and cooked. It was hardly ever a problem for Stiles, because he’d had to do most of the cooking for he and his dad since his mother died. But with Lydia came a new standard of fare, and Stiles was quick to learn new recipes so they could sit down as a family whenever possible. He also relinquished some of the responsibility of feeding the household to Lydia. She was just as talented and efficient in the kitchen as she was in every other aspect of her life. Their kitchen was well stocked and equipped in New York.

Lydia liked to treat herself and liked to include others in the pampering process. She showed the Sheriff the wonders of imported massage oil when he pulled his shoulder on the job, and insisted that if Stiles were going to grow his hair out, he use something other than body wash on it. She chastised and scolded Stiles for chewing his nails. When she helped him count his fingers, she’d rub a sweet-smelling balm onto his cuticles so they’d stop peeling. Their shared apartment bathroom was a smorgasbord of various products, each with multiple purposes to conserve space, and neutral enough for both of them to use.

Lydia liked things neat, orderly. Everything had its place, and with only about 900 square feet of space, organization and presentation were absolutely necessary. She decorated the place in its entirety. From the color of the curtains to the placement of the furniture, to even the furnishings of Stiles’ room, the apartment had LYDIA MARTIN all over it—classy, trendy, comfortable, and presentable.

They could live here. They could entertain here. They planned to.

And while she picked the various types of shelving and storage, the tables and chairs, and decided on color schemes and where the television would go, Stiles put it all together and made it happen. He mapped out the studs in the walls and drilled into them, hanging this canvas or that mounting bracket, this set of shelves and that mirror. Pencil strokes marked exactly where Lydia wanted everything, and while Stiles worked, she’d make sure something was ready for him to eat once he was finished.

He suspected she gave him the physical tasks to keep him occupied. The exertion wore him out, let him sleep better and deeper at night. The focus required to build Lydia’s perfect apartment prevented him from thinking too long or too hard on what they left behind in Beacon Hills or what they had before them in New York.

They rode the subway and walked a few blocks to the hardware store where Lydia asked his opinion on paint for her bedroom. She chose the second of his two favorite shades of lilac. For his room, she convinced him of the merits of dove grey. A lilac handprint of Lydia size and proportion would be pressed against the wall above the light switch in Stiles’ room. A grey Stiles-sized handprint would be found against lilac above a matching switch in Lydia’s room.

When one bedroom was in disarray for painting, they shared the remaining one. Sleeping beside Lydia was as natural as breathing for Stiles. Ever since the Nogitsune, ever since Aiden and Ethan left, ever since Allison moved to France with Isaac and Chris Argent, he’d spent more nights with her than away from her.

He’d wiped her tears and told her she was brilliant, that she was _something._

She’d held him while he trembled and told him that it wasn’t his fault, that he was _good_.

Lydia wasn’t _in love_ with Stiles by any means, but she loved him. She had to, in order to put up with him.

“Stiles!”

But he’d always, _always_ loved her, for as long as he could remember; and  like any real love, it was ever-changing.

Stiles jumped and nearly crushed his hand with the hammer. “What?” he called. He didn’t have to yell—the apartment was actually rather small—but Lydia had yelled, so he’d yell too. Screw it.

She was more of a sister than anything else at this point.

She stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but a pair of towels, one wrapped atop her head to hold her hair, the other around her body. What felt like approximately seven lifetimes ago, Stiles wouldn’t have been able to think straight at the sight. As it was, he had no trouble resisting the urge to trace the lines of her body in nothing but terrycloth. It was a good thing, too, because her pretty face was set in quiet rage that promised a banshee screech just to blow Stiles’ eardrums on principle. “Why must you always leave your nasty, dirty clothes in the bathroom? You have a laundry basket. Use it!”

He had the sense to flinch in shame. “Sorry, Lyds. I’ll get it in a sec. I’m just—” He shoved a piece of heavy wood so it was no longer so awkwardly balanced against his feet. “—putting the coffee table together.” Stiles considered it a victory when the tension left her shoulders, and her hands fell from her hips.

She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the bathroom, only to reappear a moment later with a fistful of Stiles’ dirty clothes. She dropped them carelessly just past the threshold into his bedroom. “Please remember next time,” she said as she went into her own room. She shut the door behind her a little harder than necessary, but that could just as easily been because of how light the doors were as it was from her still being annoyed.

In exchange for her forgiveness, Stiles called, “I’ll put the dinner table together next!”

She didn’t respond, but when he’d finished with both tables, there was an extra pickle spear next to the sandwich she’d made him.

“This is so surreal,” he said around a mouthful of turkey and cheese.

“You’re a savage,” Lydia chastised playfully, throwing a napkin at him. But her expression lost a hint of its humor. ‘Surreal’ or any such word relating to non-reality worried her. It worried him too, most days. Dreams within dreams within dreams within his trapped mind while an evil fox spirit rampaged through his hometown…Stiles still sometimes stopped to read things—signs or flyers or even just the lock screen of his phone—and he’d sometimes count his or Lydia’s fingers without realizing it. Lydia, however, never missed it.

“Being in New York, I mean,” he said, quickly explaining. “It’s like a dream come true, you know? Like, I can’t tell you how many times I didn’t think I’d live to see college. And here we are.”

Relief was in her smile.

“None of this would be happening without you, you know.”

Lydia cocked her head and took a sip from her water bottle, so Stiles continued.

“My dad and I never would have been able to afford me going to NYU. So your parents letting you get a bigger apartment, being okay with me rooming with you. Shit, they even pay for food for us, I mean, for me, too. Not just you. And it means a lot, you know? I don’t know if I’ve ever actually told you that. So, thank you.”

“You and your dad took me in when I needed a place to stay,” Lydia said. “You took me in when no one else could or would. And it meant a lot to me to be able to finish high school in Beacon Hills with my friends. So, thank you for that, for giving me that. I’m happy to return the favor. My parents, too.”

Stiles couldn’t help but blush, and he laughed nervously to try to cover it up. “You know I’d do anything for you, Lyds.”

“I know. That’s why you’re going to finish setting up the living room by eight o’clock, so I can watch The Voice.”

After chuckling into his drink, Stiles said, “Yes, ma’am.”

 

###

 

Stiles loved Scott, greatly. Scott was his brother.

Stiles resented Scott, greatly. Scott was a dick.

_“I just don’t get why you have to go all the way to New York.”_

_“It’s different. It’s new. Everybody there wants something more.”_

_“More than what Berkley or Stanford could offer?”_

_Stiles tightened his jaw and stood his ground. “Yes.”_

Stiles resented Scott because Scott was selfish and didn’t understand Stiles’ needs.

Like any great love, it kept him guessing. And sometimes Stiles wondered if going to New York was the right decision. He hated that Scott made him second-guess himself.

 

###

 

Stiles loved his father.

“How’s the city, kiddo?”

The Sheriff called at least once a week, normally on Sunday afternoons.

“Great!” Stiles smiled, glanced to Lydia beside him on the couch. “It’s Dad.”

“Tell him I said, ‘hi.’”

Stiles did, and the Sheriff sent her his regards.

“Your hair’s different,” the Sheriff said.

Laughing, Stiles climbed off the couch and went into his bedroom. He didn’t want to disturb Lydia’s work. Her paper was due the next day, and she was adding finishing touches. Not that it needed any, in Stiles’ opinion, but what did he know about theoretical mathematics? “Yeah,” he said, flopping onto his bed. “I wanted to do something different, ya know? And the job I got at the library doesn’t care, so…yeah. Why not?”

The Sheriff just chuckled. “Whatever you want, kid. But you’re doing okay? How’re you sleeping?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sleeping is…well, it comes and goes, I guess? I’m glad I’m living with Lydia, though, instead of in a dorm or with random roommates. Nights are easier knowing she’s here. It’s bright, though, the city. Even at night. The lights are so bright, I had to get black out curtains.” He laughed again.

Nightfall had always been dark, so dark, in Beacon Hills. Stiles had been able to leave his window open back home and still sleep, enjoy the night air and—Stiles stopped thinking about his open bedroom window and what it had so often led to.

New York, new start.

He was supposed to be better than this.

“That’s the city for you,” his dad said. The Sheriff’s voice gave Stiles something to focus on besides his own thoughts. “You’ll get used to it, though.”

“It’s a rhythm, just like anything else,” he agreed. Most conversations with his dad were just reassurances that he was fine so far from home. “It’s a new soundtrack, almost, with all the cars and the general hum of, like, city life. But I could dance to this beat. I’ll get it. Having Lydia with me helps. She seems to know the place a bit better, but she’s still new, too, ya know? So that’s nice to have.”

“As long as you’re alright. You know that’s all I’m worried about.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I’ll call you later this week, okay?”

“Yep. Love you.”

“Love you too, son. Tell Lydia the same.”

“Sure.” Stiles smiled and disconnected the call. “Dad loves you, Lyds!” he shouted through his closed bedroom door.

And from the living room, muffled by the door: “I love him, too!”

Stiles loved his dad because his dad understood that he needed to get away, and let him.

 

###

 

Greenwich Village, Stiles discovered, was a different world. According to the Wikipedia article he’d read, it was ‘an artists' haven, the Bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and '60s counterculture movements.’ For once, he believed the hype and wasn’t disappointed. He passed through it every day on his way to campus, and found himself wandering, lost amongst the sight and sounds, when he had time between classes. It was…stunning. And a little overwhelming. Stiles could stare at nothing and everything, easily losing track of time amid the colors and _life_.

Walking through a crowd, the Village aglow, it occurred to Stiles, quite suddenly, that Derek had moved and lived in New York with Laura after the fire. Derek had, once, probably wandered these very streets and browsed these very shops. He may have even stood in this very spot.

 _Weird_.

Derek hadn’t crossed his mind—not directly, anyway—since, well, just before he’d gotten on the plane. He’d hoped, in his naivety, that Derek would show up at the terminal in some grand romantic gesture and ask him to stay. It was stupid. He’d just checked his bags with Lydia and boarded the plane, leaving everything that hurt behind. No Derek. No reason to stay. He turned off his thoughts of Derek as the plane taxied on the tarmac. Indirectly, however, Derek was always on his mind—he was trying to get away, trying to move on, trying to _let go_. But Stiles was alone with only his melancholy for company. Without Lydia to read every emotion that flickered in his expression, he was free to think of Derek without guilt.

Was the kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats overwhelming to his werewolf hearing? How long did it take for him to adjust to the _smells_ : people, paint, food, exhaust? Not to mention the chemosignals of everyone he brushed shoulders with. Jesus, every bit of anger, anxiety, happiness, sorrow, the mingled scents of home and family…

_It must have taken months._

Months for frightened, mourning, lonely Derek to adjust from the quiet familiarity of Beacon Hills to the sensory overload of New York City. And while Stiles may have also been struggling to adjust, he at least didn’t have a crushing sense of loss or painful youth working against him.

He huffed and pulled up the collar of his coat before ducking a little further into his scarf. It was cold, much colder than he was used to, and he couldn’t help but recall getting draped in warm leather whenever he shivered back in Beacon Hills. Aftershave, pine, earth, and a lingering scent of smoke had started to smell like home. He shook his head and kept walking. It didn’t help him to dwell on it.

He’d thought he was in love, true love. It drove him crazy.

He’d been so very stupid.

When he and Lydia had first dropped their bags on their apartment floor, they agreed to take their broken hearts and lock them away, put them in a drawer and move on. They’d been left in shambles, Stiles and Lydia, wounded and aching and too fucking young to know what to do with it. He still didn’t know what to do with it, and he doubted Lydia fared much better. They had their senior year of high school to try to adjust, but it just…hurt.

Stiles dropped his gaze to the concrete, didn’t want to think about Derek. He’d thought his first time in New York would be with him, getting a private Hale tour of the city—Derek’s favorite sights, where he and Laura would get lunch together on the weekends, where to get the best cup of coffee or the best slice of pizza.

 _No_ , Stiles thought. _He will not ruin this place for me._

If anything, Stiles wanted his scent to linger in the city, to color the last place Derek ever shared with his sister, hoped that Derek would hurt as much here as Stiles hurt in Beacon Hills that last year of school.

Stiles’ shoulder slammed into someone.

Coffee spilled, its bitterness caught in the cold air as it splattered down the shirt of the man into whom he’d so carelessly collided. Some of it caught on Stiles’ scarf, down the sleeve of his coat. Stiles was mortified. The guy tensed in rigid indignation.

“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry!”

His gaze flicked to the man’s face—

Thick eyebrows drawn into a stormy expression, sharp bearded jawline, full lips pulled into a frown.

—Stiles froze, terror shooting down his spine. _No_.

But _no_. His eyes were wrong. The guy’s eyes were brown, a caramel that matched the underlying sweetness wafting from the stain on Stiles’ scarf.

“It’s okay,” the guy said. When he finally looked up, wiping excess liquid from his clothes, his annoyed expression softened with kind understanding. “Accidents happen.”

Stiles forced himself to smile apologetically, choking down his initial panic. His cheeks were warm. “I am _so_ sorry. Here. Let me buy you another cup, at least. I…” He glanced down to his scarf, then ducked out of it. “It’s kinda…stained…but it’s not as soaked. It should keep you warm.”

The guy waved his hand and chuckled. “It’s fine. It’s not that cold. But I guess you’re not from around here, are you?”

Stiles shook his head. “California, actually.”

“I’m originally from South Dakota. Been here a few years, though, and the seasons aren’t that different, to be honest.” Extending his hand, the guy said, “Adam.”

City of immigrants, Stiles supposed. Everybody here was someone else before _._ “Stiles,” he answered, taking Adam’s hand.

Adam grinned. “Nickname, I assume.” He tossed his crumpled coffee cup into a nearby trash can before looking at Stiles expectantly.

“Dude, I can’t even pronounce my given name. Some family heirloom my parents cursed me with.”

They shared another laugh, but then Adam was dusting his clothes once more and straightening his jacket. “Well, it was good meeting you,” he said, all charming smiles and easy stance. “But I’ve gotta get going.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket and gave Stiles a business card. “Call me sometime and I might take you up on the cup of coffee, yeah? Welcome to New York, Stiles.”

With a nervous chuckle, Stiles took the card and said, “Yeah, sure. Thanks. See ya around.”

Adam smiled once more, then disappeared into the crowd. Stiles rewrapped his scarf around his neck and sighed.

 _You can want who you want,_ Stiles told himself. Because what he felt was normal. Lydia felt it, too. _Even if it’s your…_ He didn’t even know what Derek had been to him.

He dropped Adam’s card into the trash on his way to the train.

 

###

 

The first time Lydia screamed in New York was over a month after they’d moved in.

Stiles had begun forcing himself to sleep in his own bed. But it was hard for him ignore the thumps and pangs from neighboring units, hard not to startle at every unexpected sound.

He wasn’t getting used to it.

At least with Lydia beside him, he could count her breaths, the rise and fall of her chest, count her fingers where they peeked over her ribs when she hugged herself in sleep. So when Lydia screamed for the first time since leaving Beacon Hills, he was already awake. He nearly tripped when his feet tangled in his covers before barreling across the small hallway and into her room. The door hit the wall with a slam. “Lydia!”

She sat on her bed, doubled over with her hands over her ears, and her jaw seemed to be trying to unhinge. Tears seeped from her shut eyes, clamped tight against the torrent of sounds only she heard, the _noise_ she instinctively, as a banshee, tried to drown out with her scream.

“Lydia!”

Before he could cross the room, her scream shrank to more human decibels, cracking as it dissolved into sobs. He slid onto the bed and gathered her against his chest. Her arms moved around his neck, his shoulder, clinging to him as she cried. Stiles pressed his cheek against the top of her head and shushed her, rubbing her back in long, steady strokes. “I’ve got you,” he said. “You’re alright. I’m right here.”

But Lydia was nothing if not resilient; she recovered quickly, pulling away from Stiles enough to wipe her face and sniffle. And Stiles knew to let her go, but he kept a hand on her shoulder, his thumb sweeping across the bare skin there.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“Wind,” she said. “And screeching. Like a bird or something.”

Stiles frowned, then reached up with his free hand and wiped what tears she didn’t catch.

“I don’t know what it means,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“We’re in New York,” Stiles murmured. “There are literally hundreds of murders alone every year, sometimes more. We probably should have thought of that before moving here.” He tucked her hair behind her ears, but Lydia shook her head, took him by the wrists to pull his hands away.

“It wasn’t here. It was in the woods.”

“There are woods here. Not in the city, obviously, but upstate. National parks and stuff.”

Lydia didn’t seem convinced, but she didn’t argue further. Instead, she dropped her gaze to where she began tracing patterns against the soft skin of his wrists with her thumbs. It hurt Stiles to see, made him feel like a dick for possibly dismissing her. Jackson used to do that—dismiss Lydia—and Stiles had always hated him for it.

“I wonder what the range is for a banshee,” she said quietly, “if there’s a requirement for how close I have to be to sense something.”

“I’ll look into it,” he promised. “Wanna try to get some sleep?”

Lydia nodded, but clutched him when he tried to get up. “Stay,” she said. “Please?”

He gave a terse nod, and after she shifted onto her side of the bed, he slid beneath the covers on his. As much as he told himself it was because Lydia asked, that it was for Lydia, Stiles couldn’t completely disregard how much better it felt to have someone beside him.

“We can’t keep doing this, Stiles,” Lydia said in the dark. Her voice was soft, airy, as if she worried her words might shatter something between them. “When we start seeing people…”

“ _If_ we start seeing people,” Stiles corrected. “I doubt anyone here will understand the plights of a banshee or a former Nogitsune host, but I promise to stay in my room if you bring anyone home.”

She rested a hand on his hip and gave it a squeeze. “We agreed to a new start. No looking back, remember? That includes learning to sleep alone.” _Or with someone else_ went unsaid, but Stiles heard it loud and clear.

“I can sleep alone,” Stiles muttered. Because he’d prefer that to the alternative.

“No, you can’t,” Lydia answered.

“I _can_ ,” he insisted. “I just don’t _like_ to.”

“…I don’t really like to, either.”

 

###

 

The first time Scott called, midterms were less than two weeks out, and it wasn’t to catch up or plan a visit.

“Stiles, we need your help.”

It was three in the morning, Stiles’ time, and there was some sort of wailing in the background on Scott’s end.

Stiles sat up, scrubbing his face in an effort to collect his wits, but the adrenaline, the overheard suffering in the background—things were quickly coming into sharp focus. “Yeah, of course. What is it?” He dropped from his bed to dig beneath it in search of his laptop.

Still in beneath the covers, Lydia mumbled something about the time, something about hanging up, something about needing some damn sleep already.

“Lydia, it’s Scott,” Stiles said. He put the call on speaker to free up his hands. The wailing continued, then tapered off into snarls and growls.

And soon Lydia was up and out of bed as well, disappearing into her own room.

Running with wolves, Stiles developed a familiarity with his…his pack. Even without the acute werewolf hearing, Stiles could tell the difference between their howls and growls, had learned to tell the difference between two wolves and twelve, and twelve wolves and twenty. He knew how to bring a wolf down without hurting it, and knew how to put a wolf down without making it suffer. Wolves, like any animal, preferred to hide their pain and weakness to avoid provoking further attack. For werewolves it was the same. To whimper, growl, to vocalize their pain...it was bad. Stiles’ hands trembled as he pulled up his web browser.

Two of his wolves were hurt.

Erica was one. She’d been wailing, human vocal chords crying before the wolf took over.

The other was Derek.

Stiles knew before Scott told him, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

Lydia returned with her own laptop, the bestiary opened with the search function engaged. She sat cross-legged beside him, the phone between them with Scott’s tinny voice reaching out to them, pleading, even after they had run away. Stiles never felt the distance as poignantly as he did then.

As Scott explained how they’d been ambushed, Stiles and Lydia began searching. But Scott’s story wasn’t much of a lead. No one got a good look at what attacked them, because the wind had suddenly kicked up.

Lydia gave Stiles a pointed look.

“The wind cut like razors. It completely blinded us. We couldn’t see, smell, or hear anything. It was like being in a tornado. Some screeching, razor-bladed—” Scott sighed into the phone, then said into the background, “Stay the bleeding. Shit. Stiles, they’re not healing. They’re impaled with something and we can’t pull it out and they’re not healing!”

“Show me,” Stiles said, picking up the phone. “Show me, Scott!”

The call disconnected, and a few moments later, Stiles’ phone buzzed with a new picture message. When he opened it, it was blurry, the subject clearly in motion. He could make out the shape of a torso, flat and bulky—Derek’s—and protruding from somewhere beneath his ribs was what looked like—

“A blade?” Stiles asked, squinting. It was long, dark, more than triple the width of the Oni’s swords. He zoomed in on the weapon, trying to focus on it instead in whom it was embedded.

“Scott said they couldn’t pull it out. That doesn’t make sense, unless it’s serrated and it causes more damage. Like the prongs of an arrowhead.” Lydia took the phone from Stiles and studied the picture herself. “It’s too blurry. I can’t tell. And besides, this isn’t enough to go on.”

With a frustrated huff, Stiles called Scott on Skype with his laptop. It rang twice before Scott’s bloody, dirty face appeared on the screen. He’d answered with his phone, if how the camera shook was any indication. Behind him, Stiles could make out the drab expanse that was Derek’s loft, the open space, the large wall of glass. It had felt like home, once upon a time.

Stiles leaned forward to illuminate his face with his laptop screen. “The picture was too blurry. We can’t make anything out. Show us.”

Scott carried the phone to where Derek and Erica lay on the floor, their spines arching, hips twisting, simply _writhing_ in agony. It was like their muscles continued contracting despite reaching their physical limit, like their skeletons were trying to rip themselves from their bodies.

Even with the grainy quality of the video feed, Stiles could tell they were pale, that the dark shadows on their clothes were blood stains. Their eyes flashed, and their fangs dropped. Derek clasped his beta’s hand, the veins running up his arm black as he leeched her pain, despite his own. Flanking them were Cora and Boyd, each trying to lessen Erica and Derek’s suffering. The veins of their hands and arms pulsed black as tar, their faces matching expressions of hurt and fear and concentration, their eyes beta gold.

Erica only had one mystery blade protruding from her, almost square in her abdomen. She cried and whimpered even while both Derek and Boyd absorbed what they could of her pain. Derek had two: the one just under his ribs that Stiles had already seen via blurry picture message, and another higher up in his chest. His breathing was labored, and blood stained his lips, but he wouldn’t let go of either Erica or Cora. Stiles wondered if the only reason the wounded wolves were still conscious was because of their pack mates at their sides.

But the longer he looked at the screen, the less Stiles believed what had injured Erica and Derek was actually a blade. The color was too pearlescent. A dark green that bled into midnight blue that bled into black. And while he knew steel could be colored based on how it was tempered, the colors should have been brighter, metallic. This thing simply…wasn’t. The grip, or at least where Stiles imagined the wielder holding it, was narrow. Too narrow, in fact, to support something that appeared as heavy as what was in Derek’s rib cage or Erica’s stomach. It should snap beneath its own weight, beneath the pressure of one of the wolves pulling on it.

Jesus, Allison’s knowledge of weapons would have been helpful then.

And then he asked the obvious question, the question he should have asked in the beginning: “Is it made of out of metal? Or stone? Are there any carvings in it?”

“I don’t think so,” Scott said. “It’s warm to the touch. Feels like its humming.”

“It looks like a feather,” Lydia murmured. “Not a sword.” She didn’t need to mention her vision to Stiles—he was already thinking about it, and he felt like an idiot.

“Scott, zoom in on the thing again,” Stiles said.

Stiles and Lydia, almost cheek to cheek, combed the edge of the object when Scott stood over Erica and zoomed in. This close, the changes in color were more apparent, and while the edge wasn’t serrated like a steak knife, it wasn’t smooth either. There were no runes or symbols to speak of.

“Shit,” Stiles breathed. “I think you’re right, Lyds.”

“You said you couldn’t pull them out. Why can’t you pull them out, Scott?” Lydia asked. She looked to her laptop screen, fingertips typing furiously. Stiles caught a glimpse of ‘wings’ as her main search item.

“Here, look,” Scott said, and Stiles did. He waved to someone just outside of the frame—Stiles and Lydia shared a glance when they saw bloody bandages wrapped around his hand—and soon Kira stood over Derek. When Scott nodded, Kira grabbed the end of mystery blade, what Stiles thought was the grip, with both hands and pulled.

The whole fiasco was like watching everyone but Arthur trying to extract Excalibur from the stone. This was anyone but Thor trying to lift Mjölnir.

Kira’s eyes flashed orange. Still, the blade wouldn’t move. Beneath her, Derek arched into the pull, foaming at the mouth, snarling and spitting, eyes flashing red.

Then Kira’s hands slipped, and she nearly tripped over Derek’s legs stumbling backwards.

Derek dropped onto the floor with a choked-off groan.

“This is why,” Scott said. Kira came over and showed her hands to the camera. Sliced open, slippery with blood. And the wounds weren’t healing. “Wrap those up,” Scott told her when Stiles and Lydia were properly horrified. Then he looked into the camera, at them all the way in New York, while he was there in Beacon Hills with two of their friends, two of their _pack mates_ bleeding out. “Have you found anything?”

Lydia shifted her laptop to allow Stiles a clearer look, and information concerning seven different creatures with wings covered the screen. “There,” Stiles said, pointing to one. “That looks like the thing.”

“The thing?” Scott asked.

Stiles sighed. He ran a hand down his face. “The thing in Derek and Erica.”

“A harpy,” Lydia read aloud. She nodded, whether to herself or Stiles, Stiles didn’t know. “Control over wind—there’s your tornado. Quick. Sharp edged feathers. They’re birdlike, so that explains the screeching. Those…sword things. They look like flight feathers.”

“Great!” Scott said. “Perfect. Now how do we get the feathers out of them?”

“It says mountain ash and fire.”

Scott’s eyebrows raised in question. “I’m supposed to burn them?”

Lydia nodded again. “Feathers are hollow to let birds fly, just like their bones. So the shaft—the thing you’ve been grabbing to try to yank it out—should be hollow. It runs down the length of the feather. The bestiary says to fill it with mountain ash and light it, like a wick. I guess it spreads to the barbs of the feather to break it down or something.” She turned her laptop so Stiles’ webcam could transmit the images for Scott’s viewing pleasure.

Scott huffed a sigh. “Okay. Okay. My mom has some and—”

“I’ll go!” Kira piped up. “I’ll take your bike, Scott.” She was gone before anyone could contest her. Stiles heard the loft door slam through the video feed.

“You don’t want the ash getting into their wounds,” Lydia warned. “Remember what it did to Gerard? Make sure you wrap something around the feather where it actually comes into contact with their skin.”

“Right,” Scott agreed. “I’ll get on that. Hold on a sec.” Scott set the phone down, and the screen showed the dark, sheetrock-less ceiling of the loft. All the support beams, the ducts for the central air. Stiles remembered, at night, staring up at that very same ceiling until Derek growled at him.

_“Stop thinking and go to sleep, Stiles.”_

_“Sure thing, Sourwolf.”_

 “—Stiles.”

“Yeah, man. He’s on the phone,” Scott said. “He and Lydia are helping us. Hold still, okay?”

Stiles heard Derek groan his name again, and his chest tightened.

Someone grabbed the phone. Stiles and Lydia watched the video blur and tremble until it focused at a raised angle on Derek and Scott. Scott was leaning over the other alpha, wrapping what looked like hand towels around the wound. In the top corner of the screen, Erica had already been given the same treatment. As an alpha, Derek had strength reserves his betas simply didn’t. It made sense Erica was priority.

“Stiles…?”

“Derek. I’m here. I’m right here.” The words escaped him before he could clamp down on them. “We’re gonna get you patched up quick, alright? Just hang in there.”

Unfocused blue-green eyes rolled, trying to zero in on the small screen of Scott’s phone. They flickered alpha red, like the warning light of a dying battery. His teeth were stained crimson, rivulets of blood dried at the corners of his mouth.

“Cora?” Lydia ventured, and Stiles recognized concern in her voice.

“Lydia.” The camera shifted so Cora entered the frame. Apparently, she’d remained at her brother’s side, and angled the camera so Stiles and Derek could see each other. She looked exhausted, weary, but uninjured. Her brows were pinched, though—worry.

“How are they?”

“Weak. They’re not shifting anymore. And the pain’s lessening, but it’s not from the drain,” Cora said. She heaved a breath, whispered a broken curse, and shifted her hold on Derek’s hand to lace their fingers.

Stiles’ hand went to his mouth and he leaned back further against the edge of his bed.

“Erica, you doing okay, sweetie?” Lydia called.

“She’s quieted down, breathing’s a little steadier,” Boyd’s voice rumbled.

“Okay,” Lydia said. “We’ve found something that could help, and Kira’s gone to get one of the components. She’s fast. It shouldn’t be long. You’ll be better in no time.”

But each moment just dragged, and all they could do was stay connected through the video stream. Stiles felt the edge of panic tingling along the length of his spine, watching Derek, wounded and bleeding. But what difference would it have made? Stiles was only human. What more could he do for Derek there that he wasn’t already doing on the floor of his New York apartment?

Lydia, thank God for her, just slipped her hand in his and squeezed. Stiles glanced away from where his attention had been glued to the laptop screen—glued to _Derek_ —and gave her a weak smile. She reached up to run her fingers through his hair, and he leaned into it.

“He’s going to be okay,” Lydia whispered. “You will be, too.”

All Stiles could do was nod.

He jumped when the loft door slammed, a sharp sound through the laptop speakers.

“Got it!” Kira called, a little out of breath. She tramped into the frame, but Stiles and Lydia could only see the legs of her pants and her shoes.

Scott straightened, while Cora angled the camera so they could see what he was doing.

“Okay, we’re going to test this out on Derek first, since he’s more likely to survive something going wrong.”

Stiles bit his tongue, but no one argued.

Then carefully, so very carefully, Scott tapped the edge of the small glass jar against the hollow of the feather-sword. “How much am I supposed to use?” he asked, suddenly.

“A third of the jar,” Lydia said without hesitation. When Stiles arched an eyebrow to her, she shrugged. “There are three of them, so a third for each.” Then, for good measure, she added, “Hollows aren’t actually completely hollow, so it should be fine.”

Scott heaved a breath, putting the jar into Kira’s awaiting hands. “Alright,” he said. “Here goes.” He took the lighter from Kira and flicked it over the edge of the hollow until it caught. It lit up like a sparkler, hissing angrily enough for Scott to stumble back with his hand out instinctively to protect Kira.

Stiles and Lydia could see Cora flinch back through the jerking of the camera, but she kept it pointed at the flare.

It hissed and burned and crackled, and sparks flew in blue, green and purple—the colors Stiles had noticed shifting along the feather’s edge. The spark tore through the hollow and the barbs of the feather quickly, racing down its length.

“Oh, shit!” It was Stiles. He hadn’t even realized he’d shouted. “Move the towel! Move the towel so it doesn’t catch!”

Cora ripped it away from Derek’s body just before the spark reached it, and Stiles thanked every god he could think of that they’d already torn Derek’s shirt open to look at the wound.

The spark sizzled against the seeping blood, against flesh, and Derek arched his back against it. Cora’s veins darkened anew as Derek was flooded with fresh pain. The alpha’s breath hitched, his whole body going taught, but then there was a sharp snap, and the feather dissolved in a cloud of wispy black smoke. Derek dropped back onto the floor.

“Holy shit! It worked,” Scott said, his voice edging with laughter. “He’s healing.”

Stiles let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Kira immediately began working on Erica, but Cora kept the camera on Derek. Flashes of light and the crackle, spit, pop of the feather burning were indication enough that the process worked, and Derek’s success wasn’t just a fluke. Erica gasped, deep and wet, once the feather disappeared from her abdomen, and Boyd’s relieved sigh was loud enough to be heard through the video.

Scott took the remainder of the mountain ash and made quick work of the last feather in Derek’s ribs. Once it disappeared, Derek’s body went limp, but he continued to heal.

Cora turned the camera so her face was all Stiles and Lydia could see. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I know neither of you—”

“Hey,” Lydia cut in. “We’re a pack. Stiles and I will always help however we can. _Always_.”

Beside her, Stiles nodded emphatically.

Cora’s worried expression softened into something fond, and Stiles knew she wasn’t talking to him anymore. “Thank you. That…that’s important.”

“Yeah, it is,” Lydia agreed.

“We’ll contact you tomorrow with how to kill the harpies, okay?” Stiles said. “Make sure Derek and Erica get some rest.”

“And call us if anything changes,” Lydia added.

“Sure thing,” Cora said. Her dark eyes lingered on Lydia, long and hard, the way Stiles knew he must have been staring at Derek. She nodded, as if accepting something, then disconnected the call.

Stiles shut his computer down with a sigh, closing it before slipping it back under his bed. The clock on his bedside table read 5:30a. “I think I’m skipping my morning class,” he announced.

“I can’t take notes for you, remember,” Lydia said around a yawn.

“I know,” he answered, yawning as well. “But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

She shut her computer down and slid it under Stiles’ bed as well. “…I think I might skip my morning class, too.”

They sat with their backs against Stiles’ bed for he didn’t know how long, but he broke the silence with, “What happened to our new start? We said we wouldn’t get tangled up in that shit anymore. We said we didn’t want to. We…”

Lydia sighed. “It’s only been what? A month? We’ll get there. Focus on here. Focus on now. We’ll be okay.”

It might have been true, but Stiles still had to do _something_ to prove it—he’d thrown away Adam’s card. And he realized Lydia must have felt similarly, though he didn’t know if she suffered the same setbacks as he had.

When Stiles came home later that day with his hair cut and the tips died a bright teal, Lydia told him he needed to wash his hair with color-protective shampoo. So, when Stiles found pallets of make-up in the bathroom trash, he told Lydia she was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited as much as I could, but I also wanted to post it as soon as possible. Please feel free to mention any typos, as I may have missed a few.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	2. Track 2: Blank Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia and Stiles struggle to forge a life for themselves in New York while leaving Beacon Hills behind. At first, Stiles thought he was the only one struggling to forget about his Hale, but Lydia just handles her hurt differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artwork by the amazing [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/). It was made completely independently of my fic, but it was just so perfect, I asked for permission to include it--to which the answer was yes. :)

(art by [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/))

 

There’s something to be said about control. Losing it, exerting it. Having it exerted over you. Violently seizing it. Relinquishing it.

“You can stay with me, you know,” Stiles said. His gaze was on his low-held, gesturing hands. He was nervous, running the fingertips of one hand in the spaces of the other. There was color high on his pale cheeks, contrasting the shadows beneath his eyes. Lydia found it amusing in a distant, painful sort of way.

After all this time, he still flushed when he talked to her. As if they hadn’t faced certain death in each other’s arms, as if he hadn’t put himself between her and the Oni, as if she hadn’t held onto him when their blades cut into her again and again, as if his mantra of ‘it’s not real’ wasn’t the only thing that saved her. “My dad and me, I mean” he clarified, like it was somehow necessary. “We have a spare room. It could be yours, if you wanted. I’ll even help you repaint the walls.”

Lydia didn’t say anything at first, but her breath stuttered in her chest and her eyes burned. She looked away from the sincerity in Stiles’ expression, pursed her lips, and stared at a spot in space somewhere over his shoulder. She’d already cried too much, already shown too much weakness. It was a luxury she no longer had. The things that went bump in the night were real, and if she wanted to see the end of high school, go to university, win her Fields Medal, she’d have to rally her courage.

Stiles had even said it—she was _something_. She was a banshee.

“I—”

Stiles looked up sharply, eyebrows raised in the beginnings of a hopeful expression. He seemed so _tired_. She was tired, too. Tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of hiding, tired of denying. Stiles had always seen through her, though, so the charade, the _defense_ , was…a waste.

She smiled, then. “I’d like that,” she said with a quiet sigh. “I’d really… _really_ like that.”

 

###

 

There’s something to be said about love. Falling into it, falling out of it. Expressing it selfishly. Expressing it selflessly. Watching it slowly sour.

Werewolves were real. Monsters, in their natural and supernatural forms, were real. Maybe other things Lydia originally dismissed were real, too. The things she read in stories with her grandmother. The things she’d been raised too pragmatically to believe.

_“I will not fall prey to society’s desire to turn girls into emotionally insecure neurotics who pull up their dresses at the first flattering remark.”_

Lydia knew she was beautiful. Lydia knew she was brilliant, even if no one else did.

Jackson knew he was gorgeous. Jackson knew what it meant to have Lydia on his arm and in his bed. So did Lydia.

She and Jackson weren’t perfect, despite what they showed the world. They were young, insecure, and combative in their passive-aggressive way. Jackson didn’t know how to accept anyone loving him, and Lydia didn’t trust Jackson enough to love him freely. There were moments, though, between them. Moments when she thought they were close to something—like when he gave her the key to his house. They were so close to her loving him without reservation, loving Jackson the way she wanted, the way he needed, and Jackson accepting it without bitter resentment. She did, however fortunate or unfortunate it was, come to love him, anyway.

Then came the break up— _“Dumping, actually. I’m dumping you.”_ Jackson’s wounding interest in Allison (whether it was to get under Scott’s skin or hers, Lydia would never know) and the sudden violence. He’d never been rough with her outside of her own request before, and she’d never been scared of him before. Until he slammed her against one of the brick walls of the schools and growled low and dangerous in her face.

It wasn’t until later—much later—Lydia realized Jackson’s grand plan to become the next beta in the Hale Pack, the one that included shredding Lydia’s heart with claws he didn’t need the Bite to use. He tore her down in ways she neither expected nor could process.

_“I hate you. I hate you so much.” She was crying. She didn’t want to cry anymore, but being in the same room with him hurt._

_“No, you don’t.”_

She didn’t, but Goddamn how he so obviously knew.

She managed to call him back from whatever dark precipice he’d been teetering on since Derek Hale sunk his teeth into him. That had to mean something, right?

_“Do you—do you still…?” His face was half covered in scales, a physical incarnation of the monster he’d been to her over the past few weeks._

_“Yes, I do. I do.”_

She did, but Goddamn how he so obviously needed to hear it.

If werewolves were real, what other fairytales were real?

Not theirs.

“And, seriously,” she said to Allison after Jackson had well and truly left her, “an American werewolf in London? Like _that's_ not going to be a disaster.”

But the only disaster was the one he’d left behind: Lydia.

 

###

 

There’s something to be said about attraction. The strength of the pull, the weight of the draw. Obsessing over it. Resisting it. Giving into it.

_“I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I’m looking for a distraction.”_

They met by chance.

A passing glance at the grocery store.

Straight, dark hair. Leather jacket. The basket’s handles resting in the crook of her elbow. She picked through a bin of avocados, of all things, and sniffed them instead of squeezing them. She wrinkled her nose when one offended her before tossing it aside.

Lydia pegged her for a werewolf—because they were a thing that existed—within a handful of moments.

The confirmation came when she responded to Lydia’s unabashed gaze. Just a glance over the shoulder, an amused glint in her dark eyes, a smirk on her full lips.

Intrigued, Lydia pursed her mouth, then batted her eyelashes and smiled before turning on her heel. She made sure her skirt fluttered around her legs, before walking away.

A brush of shoulders at the coffee shop.

Leather jackets were common enough, but hers had a specific array of zippers and buckles, hugged her lithe, tight body.

Lydia was nothing if not observant—especially about fashion. And she saw her there at the counter, ordering coffee.

_ Oh, my God. _

Two people separated her and the wolf she’d noticed in the produce section; she’d recognize that jacket anywhere. She pulled her phone from her purse and scrolled aimlessly through social media, keeping an eye on the girl at the counter. From her periphery, Lydia watched the girl look over her shoulder at her, could feel the weight of her stare as if it were a tangible thing. And while she felt a little like prey, it was thrilling to be so suddenly and so thoroughly disarmed. She chanced a glance up, and met the girl’s dark-eyed gaze.

Lydia couldn’t not look at her face—she was _beautiful_.

The girl smiled knowingly, then moved away from the register to wait for her drink. One customer separated Lydia from the register when the girl collected her drink and made to leave. She made a point of walking close enough to Lydia to brush shoulders, but in the crowded café, it seemed casual. Lydia didn’t miss how the girl tilted her head just so as if to get a better whiff of her perfume, or how her smile grew just a fraction as if pleased. Then she was gone.

When Lydia reached the register, she placed her order: a skinny, iced, white chocolate mocha, no whip. After giving her name, she reached into her purse for her wallet, but stopped when the barista said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s paid for.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“A previous customer, the girl in the leather jacket? She already paid. Said it was for the pretty red-head in line, and since you’re the only one fitting that description…” He shrugged.

Lydia’s brow furrowed, but she decided not to argue. “Thank you,” she said, and she moved down the counter to wait for her coffee.

A confrontation.

“You’re not the first creep to stalk my yard, you know,” Lydia called out into the night. The patio lights only reached so far, and Prada had taken off into the shadows to do his business. It was too similar to Peter Hale sinking his claws into her mind, but she refused to be intimidated in her own home. Instead, she instigated and would stand firm.

“Is that so?” the girl said, stepping out from the darkness of overpriced landscaping. Her hands were in the pockets of that damned leather jacket, and she walked with a confidence and ease that left Lydia indignant. “Is that your type?”

Lydia snorted, now truly indignant. So indignant, in fact, that she refused to grace the question with a response.

Her intentional silence went unnoticed when Prada darted from where he’d been in the bushes. He barked incessantly at the girl, snarling and snapping and making to bite at her ankles.

“He doesn’t like strangers,” Lydia offered with a bit of her own bite.

“Clearly.” The girl looked down to the papillon and smiled. “Hey, there,” she said, her voice soft and sweet despite Prada’s aggression. She bent down, easily scooping the dog into her arms.

Lydia stiffened, certain she’d bear witness to her dog’s brutal murder at the hands of some girl she didn’t know. The thought was more upsetting than she cared to admit, and her eyes stung with preemptive tears.

Instead of snapping Prada’s neck, however, the girl’s eyes glowed an eerie amber, and she shushed the dog. “It’s alright. It’s okay.” She grinned, pleased, when Prada whined, then started licking her. “Good boy. Good boy.” When the girl looked up at Lydia, her eyes still glowed—they glowed like Scott McCall’s: warm, if unnatural. They were completely different from Peter’s eyes—steel blue or blood red—or even Jackson’s. Whether through color or intent, Lydia wasn’t scared, not really, not anymore. Once again, she was intrigued. She leaned against one of the support beams for the patio, and angled her hips for something casual, something open. Wolves relied tremendously on nonverbal communication in the wild. Werewolves were nothing if not wild, and Lydia knew all too well how to communicate with her body.

The girl carried Prada across the yard and handed him to Lydia. “I’m no threat to you,” she said, voice as soft and sweet as when she’d been talking to the dog.

Holding Prada to her chest, Lydia busied her hands with stroking his silky fur while she studied the girl in front of her. The scrutiny was mutual, because as Lydia traced the line of the girl’s eyebrows to the curve of her nose, to the bow of her lips, the simple beauty of her face, the girl’s eyes were mapping Lydia’s features similarly.

_ She looks like my next mistake. _

So it was Lydia who took a step back to more easily appreciate how the jacket hugged the girl’s body, how the shirt beneath the jacket clung to the swell of her breasts and the flat planes of her stomach. Her hips, bracketed by the lines of a tight pair of jeans, were the kind Lydia wouldn’t mind gripping.

“I didn’t think you were,” Lydia breathed.

The girl gave her a gentle smile.

Lydia turned towards the glass sliding door of the house, keeping her back to the girl. Nonverbal communication. When she pushed it open and set Prada down, the dog ran inside, his nails clicking on the hardwood. Her hand lingered on the handle, finger running along the button for the lock. “Do you want to come in?”

The girl—Cora, as Lydia learned her name to be, between wet kisses and warm touches—didn’t leave until the following morning.

 

###

 

“Brothers?” Allison asked.

“Twins,” Lydia purred.

Black bike helmets, black leather gloves, black leather jackets. Sets of pairs, and a pair of sets. Lydia would be lying if she said the thought of tag-teaming them with Allison hadn’t crossed her mind, but Allison, bless her, she was still struggling over Scott. Unlike Lydia, Allison wasn’t quite as good at compartmentalizing—or ignoring—matters of the heart and ego. But that was okay.

The twins prowled around the school with the same familiarity Jackson had as lacrosse captain, as if they weren’t the two of the newest, if hottest, faces on campus. There was a weight to their strides, a certain hold to their shoulders. Lydia had seen it before: when Erica had returned to school after her seizure in a tight leather skirt and leopard heels; when Isaac had stopped dropping his head and started making eye-contact; when Boyd stopped sitting alone in the cafeteria and looked completely at home by Erica’s side; when the girl had shown up in her yard. Lydia could read them like a magazine. Werewolves.

“I want one,” she told Allison in the library.

Allison looked over her shoulder to where the twins chatted near a shelf. She smiled, like she was privy to a secret. “Which one?”

“The straight one, obviously,” Lydia answered, taking a sip of her coffee. Allison might have been a terrifyingly skilled huntress, but her obliviousness with certain things was downright adorable. Lydia only waited a handful of moments before she abandoned her cup and approached the brother of her choosing.

“Aiden,” he said, smiling as he leaned in close.

“Nice to meet you,” Lydia said. She snatched his cell phone, boldly added her information to his list of contacts before texting herself from his phone.

Love was a game, and Lydia was ready to play.

 

###

 

Lydia didn’t meet Cora in her yard anymore.

The weather was nice in the evenings, and Lydia liked how the breeze made the sheer curtains of her open window flutter. It wasn’t enough to rustle the pages of her books or homework, but it was enough to keep her room cool, and it felt nice on her bare legs.

So if Cora happened to climb through the open window that kept her room cool and fluttered the sheer curtains, it certainly wasn’t Lydia’s intention or invitation.

Lydia also liked to play music while she studied. The regular rhythm of a quietly strumming guitar and gentle vocals helped her concentrate. White noise let her focus and drown everything else out.

So if, when Cora arrived, the music masked her presence from Lydia’s parents, it wasn’t like Lydia had planned it.

Her textbook slid from the bed, shoved by an impatient hand. It hit the floor with a dull thud, pages flapping beneath their own weight. Cora was more careful with the notebooks, tossing them like Frisbees into a neat pile by Lydia’s closet. It was better than letting them tumble and tear. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough, so when Cora pushed her down and pinned her to the mattress, Lydia arched against her with a soft moan.

“Where’ve you _been_?” Lydia asked, and she let some of her frustration color her voice. Cora had to do little to have Lydia damp in her panties, to have her wanting. And unlike the boys she’d been with, Cora didn’t try to use Lydia’s interest as a means of undermining her.

“Busy,” Cora said, rucking up Lydia’s skirt to kneel between her thighs. When she leaned over her, her hair was a dark curtain hiding their faces, secreting away the wet slide of their mouths. “My brother—”

“Don’t talk about your brother when you’re on top of me,” Lydia sighed. She leaned up to kiss her, stole the air from her lungs to gasp it back into her mouth. When Cora growled, she turned her head to bare her neck.

“Sorry,” Cora said. She chuckled softly. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you, though.” She kissed down Lydia’s neck, then pulled back the collar of her dress to expose her shoulder. There, she bit Lydia hard enough to leave a light bruise, and she smirked when the girl beneath her let out a breathy gasp. “Came back as soon as I could.”

“Not soon enough,” Lydia remarked. She clamped her knees around Cora’s hips and rolled them across the mattress until she straddled the werewolf.

Cora’s hands slid up the soft skin of Lydia’s thighs and under the fabric of her dress. Her fingers slid beneath the elastic of her panties, but just caressed her flesh with gentle sweeps of her thumbs. “Were you worried?”

Rocking her hips, Lydia scoffed, “About what? _You_?”

The werewolf arched an eyebrow, her smile a little smug.

Lydia rolled her eyes, but slid her hands beneath Cora’s shirt to touch skin. “Please.”

“If you insist,” Cora purred. Her fingertips moved the mere inches needed to make Lydia buck her hips and gasp.

Leather and denim quickly gave way to smooth skin. Outstretched claws and glowing yellow eyes heralded the end of Lydia’s dress, but a sharp look halted its ultimate demise. Instead, Cora allowed razor points of werewolf claws to lightly graze Lydia’s skin, used it to easily hook the laces of her dress and pluck the bow free.

And the breath Cora inhaled? The startled little gasp, as if she wasn’t expecting what she found beneath designer material? It went straight between Lydia’s legs and flushed her cheeks. She knew she was beautiful. She knew people looked when she walked into a room. But others never made her _feel_ beautiful. Whether because of her inability to rely on others, or their inherent insincerity, Lydia didn’t know. But when Cora hovered above her, brows drawn in something akin to awe…Lydia felt beautiful.

Tracking time shot to the bottom of Lydia’s priorities. Cora’s werewolf strength made the meeting of mouths, the press of bodies absolutely electric. Lydia was free to use her nails, her teeth, free to pull on long, dark, tresses with an abandon she’d never been granted. Cora growled and arched and yielded, then smirked and pounced. Cora, almost instinctively, knew just how much to pull, just how hard to bite to have Lydia dripping down her thigh without hurting her.

Before Cora left, she made a point to kiss every inch of Lydia she was allowed, every inch she could reach. Her lips traveled the length of Lydia's spine, she nipped at the backs of her thighs, she laved at the space just behind her ear. She breathed against her jaw and rubbed her cheek against the column of her neck.

“I can smell him on you,” she said, her voice rough from previous growling and the work of her tongue between Lydia’s legs. “The alpha from school.”

Lydia tried not to show any outward signs of concern, but if her conversations with Allison had taught her anything about werewolves, it was how they could smell and hear the biological workings of cognitive intent—the beating of a heart, the scent of an emotion seeping from the skin. It was a whole new level of honesty Lydia could do little to stop or hide.

She didn’t know if Cora expected an answer to a question she didn’t ask, or if she wanted an excuse for an accusation she didn’t seem to make. And while Lydia didn’t think she had anything in particular to apologize for, it wasn’t a conversation she was averse to having. She _liked_ Cora, liked what she did to her, and what she could do to Cora in return.

Cora touched her with an ease and confidence that had no pretense. Cora kissed her because she seemed to want to—sometimes because she couldn’t seem to help it. It wasn’t a matter of ego for Cora to make Lydia feel good—it was simply making her lover feel good, and letting her lover do it for her in return. Lydia felt no pressure from Cora to keep her around, despite how Lydia was maybe sort of starting to _want_ to keep her around. But after Jackson, Lydia wasn’t sure if she could—

The sheets bunched in Lydia’s fist.

Cora pressed her still-naked body against Lydia’s back as she said, “I want to make sure he smells me, too.”

Lydia nodded. She understood, really. Of course, she did. So she closed her eyes and relished the press of Cora against her for as long as Cora felt the need to.

When she was satisfied with her scent-marking, Cora cupped Lydia’s jaw and kissed her, long and slow and sweet. “I’ll see you soon,” she murmured against Lydia’s mouth. She dressed quickly and left the same way she came—unexpectedly and through the open window.

But now the breeze that had previously cooled her room made it cold.

 

###

 

One of the first new additions to their apartment was an acoustic guitar. When Lydia first saw it propped against the side of the couch, she studied it for a full thirty seconds before calling out, “Stiles?”

“Yeah?” He was in his room, but appeared a moment later with his laptop tucked under his arm. “What’s up?”

She looked to him.

His hair was longer, the tips of his hair colored a vibrant blue. He’d abandoned his love of plaid over-shirts sometime just before the start of school. Instead, his shirts were a bit snugger, and it forced Lydia to acknowledge how his shoulders had broadened, how he’d filled out with lean muscle into the body of a man. But Jesus, some nights it still felt like they were kids, huddled together beneath the blankets of one of their beds, one of them shaking, one of them crying, one of them comforting the other. The road to this point had been a long and arduous once, but she was pleased with the results if it meant Stiles sleeping through most of the night. She’d take it if it meant he had more color in his cheeks and more life in his eyes.

She pointed to the instrument, brows pinched in puzzlement. It case was beat up and worn, the leather peeling at the seamed edges. “You got a guitar?”

Stiles beamed, and Lydia hadn’t seen him so shamelessly happy since he’d gotten his acceptance letter from NYU. “Yeah. It was cheap, and I figured, why not?”

“Do you know how to play?” She’d never heard him or seen one in all the time they’d lived together, but there was plenty about Stiles she didn’t know, plenty she was learning. More and more each day.

“Fuck no,” he laughed. “But that’s what the internet is for.” He lifted his laptop in indication, then set it beside him when he sat on the couch. He placed his latest prize on the coffee table, his expression that of a child ready to unwrap a present. When he pulled the guitar from the case to show Lydia, it was chipped and scratched. And while it was missing two of its six strings, she saw replacements and the tools necessary for the repair at the bottom of the case.

“How cheap?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

Stiles shrugged. “I paid, like…thirty bucks for it?” Despite its condition, he ran his long fingers down its neck with a sort of reverence he’d only ever reserved for one person. And it was always when that person wasn’t looking. Lydia hurt for Stiles sometimes. And others, she hurt for herself. Seeing Stiles, she wondered what it would be like for someone to look at her like that, but quickly pushed the thoughts aside. She’d thought she’d had it once. And then again. She’d been wrong both times.

“My mom used to play, you know,” he said, his voice soft. His confession saved her from her own traitorous thoughts. “She used to sing and play for me when I was little. She died before she could teach me.”

He’d never spoken about his mother with her before, and despite how often Stiles had accused her of being cold-blooded or soulless, Lydia understood this gesture for what it was: Stiles trying to move forward. He was someone who needed something to pour every ounce of his time and effort and energy in to. Like her, she imagined the only demand of school came with time management, not so much the assignments and tests themselves. So she hoped this would be good for him.

 _She’d be proud of you_ , Lydia wanted to say. _Her baby boy has grown into such a strong young man_. But she couldn’t, because as close as she and Stiles were, as much as they so obviously loved each other, it wasn’t _that_ kind of love. They were still raw, still healing, and she couldn’t let herself be that to him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them in the end.

“You’re a quick study,” she said instead. “You’ll pick it up easily.”

“If there’s, um,” he started, then stopped. He smiled—his nervous one, the one that meant he was about to do something sweet and sincere, something she certainly didn’t deserve from him, but would accept anyway because it meant something to him to be able to do it for her—before continuing, “if there’s anything you want me to try to learn, uh, just let me know, okay?”

Lydia sat on the arm of the couch and crossed her legs, a mere few inches from him, then ran her hand through his Crayola colored hair.

His smile softened, and he leaned into her touch like he always did. “I mean it, Lyds. Anything you want, since you’ll be stuck listening to the dying cat noises while I figure it out.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” she started, still toying with his hair. “I’d like to hear the songs your mother sang.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a little tight. “I can learn those.”

 

###

 

When caught against a hot, sweaty lover, it was easy to focus on the immediacy of her body, of the need coiling low in her abdomen, and the want clawing at the base of her skull. Respond to kisses? She could do that. Lock her legs around a guy’s waist? Piece of cake. She found out what a guy wanted, then became that girl. She even sometimes spared a few moments to remember his name. Maybe she’d gasp it with praise, and if she didn’t, ‘baby’ always worked just as well.

Two weeks in New York, Stiles had asked her if things had been quiet. He meant in her head, where the voices of the dead whispered and screamed, where she would see faces and hands in the walls, where she could pluck a string of yarn and hear the murmurs of the demon possessing one of her dearest friends.

_“It’s been quiet since we moved, right?”_

_“…yeah.”_

Lydia lied.

They thought maybe the Nemeton was the cause.

Confessed like a secret one night when Stiles had snuck across the hall and into Lydia’s bed, he’d brushed her hair from her face and asked if maybe the Nemeton, the power he, Scott and Allison had put into it, was the reason why she was screaming so much more. They knew so little about banshees, there was no way to know if the awakening of her powers had to do with the Nemeton or her age or any number of other factors. But after the Nogitsune, Stiles developed a habit of blaming himself, as if he were the butterfly innocuously flapping its wings in China somehow at fault for the hurricane on the other side of the world. That was when he’d suggested applying to universities in New York.

Lydia at first thought that the suggestion was more for Stiles than for her. Believing himself the weakest link in the pack’s chain for his inability to fight the Nogitsune, Stiles just wanted to run, and maybe drag Lydia along for the ride. But Lydia knew Stiles better than that. She knew that, despite how leaving might benefit him, the suggestion really was for her sake. And he’d offered his company for her comfort more so than for his own escape. There was little tying Lydia to Beacon Hills once her parents moved, once Allison moved. Stiles still had his father, the father he’d technically died for.

And he was willing to leave everything behind so neither of them would be alone.

She wanted to believe escaping the Nemeton meant escaping the chaos in her head. Maybe, if it were true, Stiles abandoning his father wouldn’t be a waste.

The voices never quieted. They only grew louder.

Lydia lied.

When Lydia started bringing men home, she’d recycled a line.

_“I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I’m looking for a distraction.”_

 “What?” she’d asked, eyebrows raised. “It might do you some good to do the same. New start and all.”

Stiles had smiled that wounded smile of his—the one that said he saw right through her—and nodded. “Tell me when it’s over if the high was worth the pain.”

She could imagine what he meant, but she wasn’t sure.

Jeff—or was it Jake?—came bucking his hips up against her, and the headboard hit the wall with the strain. Lydia continued riding him, rocking in a slow grind, for the few more moments she needed to come herself. Before Jason? Yes, his name was Jason. Before Jason could ease her away, Lydia was already moving off him. She flopped onto her side of the bed and didn’t take long to catch her breath. The romp worked up a sweat, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying. Jason handled the condom before climbing back into bed.

“You want me to stay?” he asked, leaning over and kissing her collar bone.

“If you want,” she sighed. Because she honestly didn’t care either way. He could come and then go, or come and then stay. It made no difference to her. It wasn’t like she’d ever see him again. If she couldn’t be bothered to remember his name, how could she be bothered to remember his number? “But you should leave before my roommate gets up for class.”

“As if she doesn’t already know what we’ve been up to,” Jason remarked.

Lydia didn’t correct him. She just turned over and went to sleep.

But in her dreams, she couldn’t escape the whispers, the voices, the screams. They rumbled low like a coming storm, then crashed with a thunderous roar. Garbled images, muffled sounds, but with an overarching sense of suffering, of anguish. She heard a roar, the bubbling of water, saw a flash of red, and could almost smell the tang of blood. Her lungs filled with fluid—oh, God, was it blood?—and she panicked, fighting to get to a surface she couldn’t see. It hurt. It hurt so much.

She woke up screaming, crying, a perfect storm. It made all the tables turn. Instead of looking at her with want, Jason would look at her with terror.

“Jesus Christ! What the fuck?!” Jason jerked away so hard he fell from the bed and hit the ground with a grunt.

Stiles barged into the room what felt like an instant later, the door banging against the wall with his arrival. “Lydia!” Through her tears, her vision tunneled, and she saw the barest traces of the murderous glare Stiles gave Jason. “What the—?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Jason shouted, and when Lydia’s scream crumbled into sobs, she could hear him through the static. “She just woke up like that! Fucking psycho. Jesus.”

Stiles shook his head, snarling. “Go,” he told Jason. “Get your shit and get out.” Without waiting for a response, he collected Jason’s clothes and threw them at him. “Go, I said!”

“Wha—fine. Fine!” Jason scrambled to his feet and clutched his belongings. He barely stumbled into his pants before Stiles grabbed him by the bicep and forcibly lead him to the door.

“Get out!” Stiles slammed and locked the door, the crack of it meeting the jamb resounding even over Lydia choking on her sobs. He returned to her quickly. “Hey. Hey, hey, hey.” His voice was a smooth roll as he wiped her tears and cupped her face. “You’re okay. You’re alright.”

Lydia nodded fervently. “I know, I know,” she said. “I know. I’m sorry. I just—”

Stiles shushed her with a shake of his head. When he pulled her to him, she went willingly. He rubbed her back, like he always did, and grounded her while she sifted through the barrage of images, sounds, and feelings that had assaulted her in sleep. His solid warmth reminded her that she was awake; he never let her slip back under, and he never would.

Minutes passed. It might have been hours. Time distorted after she had an episode.

“What did you hear?” A report. Thinking of it clinically helped separate her from the terror. She never told Stiles that, but he knew. Of course he knew.

“Rushing water. Roars,” she said. “I could smell blood. I felt like I was drowning.”

Stiles nodded, and she felt it in how he held her. “I’ll email Scott and let him know.”

“You’re talking to Scott again?” Lydia asked. Truth be told, she was glad to hear it. Scott was his best friend, his self-proclaimed bother. She’ll never forget how Stiles looked at Scott that night at the motel, when he’d held a flare in a puddle of gasoline, or what he’d said. She pulled away to meet Stiles’ gaze.

Stiles’ smile was tired, a little sheepish. “Yeah. Been talking to him since the harpy incident. It’s…awkward, but we’re getting there. It’s mostly business. I’ve been, uh, researching stuff for him and—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “I wouldn’t have—”

“Because I don’t know if talking to him means I’m moving forward or backward. I haven’t—” He sighed and rubbed her back again. “I haven’t figured that out yet. But I can’t…after seeing Derek like that I just…”

“I get it,” Lydia offered as a mercy. Stiles clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it, and she wouldn’t have him feeling obligated to offer her some explanation. What he did was his business, and she’d support him no matter what he decided. He had to know that, right? She took a shaking breath, and pulled away enough to scrub at her face. “Do you want to…?”

“Of course,” Stiles said. He took her by the hand and got up from the bed. “But I’m not sleeping where you just fucked some dude. We’re using my room tonight.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue.

Stiles’ bed was warm where he’d been laying, and Lydia wondered how she could have ever believed she’d sleep as well with a random lay as she did with him. He settled in beside her, and she hugged herself beneath his blankets. She stared at the lilac handprint—her hand print—above the light switch by the door. Even in the dark, she could see it stand out against the pale grey of the walls.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” she said. She counted the fingers of her handprint and wondered if it was the same as counting the fingers of her hand.

With a huff somewhere between annoyance and understanding, Stiles turned over and wrapped an arm around Lydia. He shuffled closer to her until his nose was pressed against the top of her head and she was half on his chest. “You’re not crazy,” he muttered. His voice was thick with sleep—she was keeping him up, and she felt bad about it. “We know what it is. You’re a banshee. You predict and sense death. It’s God awful, but you’re not crazy.”

“He called me a psycho.” It was a weak argument, but she felt weak, vulnerable, even in Stiles’ arms. She’d never screamed in front of a stranger before and it was…violently unsettling.

“I told you before—hardly anyone will understand the plights of a banshee or a Nogitsune host. It’s just…we’re from a different world. We know different things, we’ve seen different things.”

“I’ve got a long list of ex-lovers that would tell me I’m insane. Jackson was one of them, in fact, and that was before the whole banshee thing.”

Stiles snorted. “You’ve got a long list of ex-lovers that are douche-bags. If _Jackson_ isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what is.” He hated Jackson, and she loved him for it.

“Aiden wasn’t that bad,” Lydia offered.

“Aiden tried to kill us,” Stiles countered.

“Cora wasn’t that bad.”

Lydia was weak. Lydia wasn’t moving forward. Lydia could only look behind and fucking _yearn_. She’d wanted a distraction from Jackson, and Aiden had been a wreck. She wanted a distraction from Cora, and everyone she’d taken to bed, Jason included, was a wreck.  She took it way too far, but when they left her breathless, they also left her with scars. She was so ashamed, so disgusted with herself. She hitched a breath and hid her face against Stiles’ chest. As if that would protect her, somehow, as if he could save her from the realization.

He waited a beat before answering, and when he did, he held her a little tighter. “No, Cora wasn’t that bad. She wasn’t that bad at all.”

 

###

 

**Meet me at the park. 1:00p.**

That was it, nothing more to the text. But there was only one unsaved number that ever messaged her. Jackson’s contact information was still saved, and it hurt every time she saw his name. Even Derek Hale had a contact in her phone, but she couldn’t bring herself to save Cora’s number. Something about doing so meant Cora became a permanent fixture in her life. She did, however, commit it to memory.

She sighed, reread the message, then looked to the stack of books laying on her bed. So many days missed from school, legitimate crisis aside, meant dedicating extra time to her studies. Death and destruction be damned, Lydia Martin was dedicated to her academics. Her parents were away for the weekend, and Allison was—finally—doing something about Isaac. It left her with little justification to decline.

Besides, she hadn’t seen Cora in what felt like ages.

She closed her laptop, dressed, and checked her appearance in the mirror of her vanity.

Her make-up collection included a color pallet for every occasion. When seeing Cora, Lydia preferred neutral shades for her eyes, and brighter shades for her lips. It honestly mattered little, because whatever she wore wound up smudged into her sheets or wiped away with spit-slick lips. But she liked it. Lydia _liked_ seeing how disheveled Cora left her. Smeared lipstick was a particular favorite. It reminded her they’d been together until the hickeys darkened and the bruises raised.

At one o’clock, Lydia arrived at the park beneath crystal skies.

Cora stood beneath a large oak tree with her back to the parking lot. The wind rippled her hair in its wake, and Lydia watched as she shoved a hand into the pocket of her leather jacket. Against the brilliance of the clear day, she was darkness personified. Hale dark hair, deep brown eyes, eyebrows pinched in what Stiles would call a ‘perpetual brood.’ Despite being a creature of the night, Cora had a decent tan—from her time in the South American sun, Lydia assumed. Cora favored dark jeans, boots, and of course, the jacket—stark in the afternoon, but leaving nothing to the imagination about what was underneath. When the darkness was Cora; when, after it was unraveled, the mystery was just Cora, Lydia didn’t fear it as much.

Lydia’s heels, though they clicked on any hard surface, were virtually silent in the soft grass of the park. Cora heard her anyway, and turned to her with a smile.

“You came,” she said. She offered Lydia the coffee cup she held.

Accepting it with a smile, Lydia braced herself to show graceful gratitude for the gesture despite its incorrect specifics. When she did sip it, it was perfect: a skinny, iced, white chocolate mocha, no whip. She surged forward and kissed Cora with cherry lips. “How’d you know?” she asked, settling back on her feet. She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice even if she’d tried. Their coffee shop encounter was ages ago, and Cora hadn’t even been in the building when she’d placed her order.

Cora grinned and tapped her ear. “Werewolf, remember?” She flashed her amber eyes for just a moment. “We can hear heartbeats, so of course we can hear incredibly specific coffee orders through glass and walls and people talking.”

“I bet that’s how you know when I’m—” _close_. Cora always knew just when Lydia was on the edge, and just how to push her over it. It was her heartbeat that gave it away.

“Yep.”

“You know, hubris isn’t a good look for you, sweetheart,” Lydia chided.

She shrugged, then offered her hand to Lydia. “Walk with me?”

Lydia raised her eyebrows playfully before taking Cora’s hand. She laced their fingers as she asked, “Cora Hale, is this a _date_?”

“Heard Lydia Martin wasn’t the dating type,” Cora said casually. Lydia couldn’t read the tone of her voice, and how troubling it was didn’t sit well with her. “Not since a certain…reptilian incident, anyway.”

“Of course you heard about me,” Lydia sighed, rolling her eyes. “Ain’t it funny how rumors fly?”

“Rose garden filled with thorns,” Cora continued in agreement. This time, there was a teasing lilt to her voice, gentle and fond.

Lydia shook her head, a little exasperated. She was the town crazy after Peter Hale, wandering naked in the woods for two days and having a mental break down. Of course nothing about her would be flattering anymore. But Cora seemed to come back each time she left. It was…comforting. She swung their linked hands a bit as they walked the perimeter of the park. Near its center, there was a playground where weary parents watched their children toss and tumble. People played fetch with their dogs, others were having picnics. She and Cora? They just walked. For an hour, maybe two, they exchanged smiles, kisses, a few words here and there. The quiet between them was fine. Lydia told herself they didn’t need words.

Then she stopped suddenly.

Cora stopped, too, brows raised in question. The beginnings of concern crept into her features. “Everything alright?”

Lydia pulled her phone from her purse slung over her shoulder and opened the camera app. “Smile!”

Cora did as an embarrassed reflex, color in her cheeks. Lydia snapped the picture.

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” she asked, saving the image. She attached it to a phone number, the previously unmarked one. In the blank space, she wrote Cora’s name.

The werewolf didn’t answer, but she seized Lydia’s face with both hands and kissed her breathless.

Terrifying things went bump in the night. Werewolves existed. But when the thing that went bump in the night, when the werewolf turned to Lydia with that tender smile…no, there was nothing to be afraid of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited as much as I could, but I also wanted to post it as soon as possible. Please feel free to mention any typos, as I may have missed a few.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	3. Track 3: Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is a fan of ignoring a problem until it goes away, but Beacon Hills and who he left behind cannot and will not be ignored forever. With the semester over and finals completed, there's nothing more he can do to avoid going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artwork by the amazing [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/). It was made completely independently of my fic, but it was just so perfect, I asked for permission to include it--to which the answer was yes. :)
> 
> This chapter is significantly longer than the other two (*I* think, anyway), and the chapters are probably going to continue to be on the longer side. I promise to try to make it worth your time!

(art by [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/))

 

Some nights, Stiles didn’t sleep. His subconscious and body worked in tandem against whatever strength of will he could muster.  He layered undershirts and over shirts and hoodies, then bundled himself in blankets, but he still shivered until his bones hurt. He woke from dozes with pressure against his throat and wretched into a wastebasket until he choked and felt his stomach turn inside-out. Instead of the filthy bandages he expected, he’d find bile and spit and cry with relief. He tried the Jack his father always turned to. He tried the weed his classmates offered. He tried over the counter sleep aids. He tried prescription sleep aids.

When he looked in the mirror, the bruises under his eyes reminded him of the Nogitsune. He swiped one of Lydia’s many concealers and wouldn’t let anyone see him without first putting it on. Dying his hair helped remind him he was the only one occupying his head.

Some nights, Stiles didn’t sleep. He hunkered down on his cloud of a bed and typed furiously on his laptop. He dug through pages and pages of available information and abused his student access to NYU’s subscription databases for the sake of _extracurricular research_. Archeology, anthropology, mythology, cryptozoology, histories. Scholarly articles and journals and papers and speeches. Stiles devoured, processed, and regurgitated every bit of information he could find. He filled notebooks upon notebooks with hand-written remarks, questions, and theories. He burned through printer ink. He updated and reorganized the bestiary.

When he appraised his work, an unidentifiable itch temporarily satisfied, it reminded him of his spark, as Deaton had called it. He contacted Scott regularly to assure he’d always be considered a resource even while he lived in New York. Witnessing Derek suffer with harpy feathers in his chest reminded him he had a responsibility he couldn’t shirk.

Some nights, Stiles didn’t sleep. His eyes burned, and his head throbbed. He leaned against his headboard, breathing deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. His hands trembled, his vision tunneled. Panic enveloped him like a fog, a gradual ratcheting of his heartbeat, a staccato of his breath. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists. But then the tears came and terror sank its claws into his cold, prickling flesh. He fainted.

When he came to, the ache in his muscles reminded him he wasn’t getting any better. He dragged himself from wherever he’d succumbed—half under his bed this time—and put on a pot of coffee once the sun crested the city skyline. Feeling Lydia’s fingers brush his own when he handed her a steaming mug helped remind him that he couldn’t tell her any of it.

 

###

 

“Rushing water. Drowning. Blood. Roaring.”

“Roaring,” Scott repeated, but it sounded like an almost-question.

Stiles sighed, rolled his eyes. It was a good thing almost three thousand miles separated them, because Stiles wanted to throttle Scott sometimes. “Yes, roaring. And I don’t think she meant the sound of, you know, rushing water, because I mentioned that already as a separate line item. I think she meant like how you guys howl.”

Scott’s expression noticeably darkened even through the sub-par video stream of their Skype call. He glanced off-screen, and Stiles stiffened.

“You’re not alone, are you?”

With a shake of his head, Scott said, “No.”

Stiles fell back into his desk chair and stared at the ceiling for the few moments he needed to rein in his white-hot anger.

He knew the pack was upset when he and Lydia left. He knew they felt betrayed and abandoned and hurt. He knew the prolonged silence would have stretched to eternity had need not driven Scott to contact Stiles over the harpies. He knew it was fucked up—everything had been fucked up for _so long_ —but Stiles was trying. Once Scott bridged the gap, Stiles started striving to lessen it. He was honest, checked in regularly, started sending stupid pictures in group Snapchat messages. Maybe it wasn’t enough for them, but it was enough for Stiles to keep the extent of it from Lydia.

Maybe he didn’t have a right to be annoyed with Scott’s dishonesty.

“Who’s there?”

“Everyone.”

Derek. Derek was there, and Cora, both listening to Stiles ramble about Lydia’s latest episode. Boyd, Erica, Kira. Stiles didn’t mind them, just their strained and awkward expressions beneath the weight of a nasty, shared past. A past where everyone in the room with Scott had been victims to the fallout. It filled Stiles with a sense of dirty guilt and the shame that drove him to run. He shoved it aside for the sake of sharing information and possibly saving lives. Because some things were bigger than his broken heart and wounded ego.

“Alright, then. What else aren’t you telling me?”

“All of that already happened,” Scott said.

Stiles lurched forward and stared incredulously at his laptop screen. “What do you mean it’s already happened?”

“How long ago did you say Lydia screamed?”

“I emailed you the morning after.” Almost a week ago.

Scott shifted how he held the laptop, and over his shoulder, Stiles saw Derek sitting on his couch, a blanket draped over his shoulders. He looked pale, exhausted, his eyes heavy-lidded. Every so often, his head would drop, but he’d pick it up again quickly—as if he were dozing off. Sometimes he shivered. Beside him, Boyd was in similar condition, wrapped in Erica’s arms. The pair of them looked perfectly miserable.

Stiles recalled the few times Derek fought sleep, how Derek would drop off beside him only to snap up straight and try to keep his eyes open. Stiles would have patted his thigh, told him it was time for bed. If Derek fussed, rubbing his face like a sleepy child, Stiles would laugh and kiss his temple, tell him again to go to bed and lead him from the couch. If Derek didn’t fuss, Stiles would be the one led away, amused with Derek’s tired grumblings. They’d fall into bed together, gravitate towards one another on the large mattress. Sometimes, Derek would gather Stiles close and quickly fall asleep. Others, Derek would let himself be gathered by Stiles, and that was always Stiles’ favorite—how Derek trusted him enough to hold him, how Derek seemed to feel safe in his arms.

It hurt to see him so worn and not be able to offer him some sort of comfort. Even if it was just in the simple suggestion of going to bed, the simple knowledge that someone paid enough attention to him to realize he needed it.

“We didn’t get the message until a few days after.”

Stiles licked his lips, then pressed them into a thin line and had the sense to cover his obvious displeasure with a casual hand to his mouth. It was a voice he didn’t recognize. A woman who wasn’t Erica or Cora or Kira or Malia and who the hell else was with his pack and why the hell hadn’t he been told about this person? “Hey,” he said. “Hi. I don’t think we’ve met.” He gave a little wave with his free hand, his eyebrows up in annoyance he couldn’t hide. “I’m Stiles.”

“Braeden,” she said. She leaned into the frame beside Scott and holy shit she was beautiful. Dark skin and dark eyes and a perfect heart-shaped face and full lips. She had scars that looked like claw marks along her jaw and throat and—what? Who was this woman and what the hell had she _survived_? She gave him a dismissive nod, then turned back to Scott. “Sounds like your banshee isn’t so reliable.” Stiles didn’t have time to be angry on Lydia’s behalf before Braeden shrugged, then left the foreground of the frame to go to…“Derek? How you holding up?”

Braeden leaned over the back of the couch and put her hands on Derek’s shoulders. Stiles watched the curve of her spine, the way she leaned into the alpha’s space with familiarity, the way her lips were so close to his temple—where Stiles’ lips used to linger when he spoke to Derek in hushed whispers.

Derek reached up and put his hand over hers, leaned back into her touch. “‘M okay,” he slurred. Stiles could hear how his jaw chattered just slightly.

When Stiles tore his attention from the background of the video feed and focused on the foreground, focused on Scott, he found Scott watching him with a pained and sympathetic expression. Stiles hated it. It looked too much like pity. It looked too much like how Scott looked at him immediately after the Nogitsune.

“So what happened?” Stiles asked.

Scott told him about the slew of drownings, how they’d all happened around this one particular spring that no one had ever seen or heard of before. It was well within Hale territory, but neither Derek nor Cora had known about it, couldn’t recall their mother ever talking about it. When the police investigated, they found nothing to suggest foul play, but the pattern of the victims suggested something. All the victims were young men who had disappeared a day or two before turning up dead at the spring. Their lungs were filled with water, and there were what seemed to be faint bite marks in the sides of their necks. They were… “Beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Stiles asked. And his eyes flicked up to where Derek was still shivering miserably on the couch beneath Braeden’s soothing hands.

“Yeah, dude,” Scott said. “Like, even I can say these guys were hot before, ya know, becoming all dead and waterlogged.”

Derek and Scott led as much of an investigation as they could with their combined resources, but they’d turned up empty. Nothing out of sorts could be scented in the woods, and the only tracks leading to the spring were those of the victims, the people who happened to find the bodies, and the investigators who scoured the scene. They had nothing, until Boyd disappeared.

But Boyd had been easy for the pack to follow. They knew his scent, and the pattern around the spring had already been established. So when they got there, they found Boyd propped against an outcropping of rocks with what looked like a woman on top of him. Erica had been the first to snap, roaring, and ready to go for Boyd. But that was when the woman—

“Was it actually a woman?”

“I don’t know, man,” Scott sighed. “It looked like a chick. Like, long hair, feminine features. But her eyes were, like, almost marbles. Soulless. She had needle fangs and hissed like some…thing. And once she saw we were there, she dragged Boyd under.”

Derek had dived in after him without hesitation and before anyone could stop him. No one could see through the murky water of the spring, but there were bubbles and blood and eventually, Derek had dragged Boyd to the surface of the water. He fought the woman, the…thing, off a few more times with fang and claw and flashing red eyes before getting safely to shore. Aside from a few scratches that quickly healed, Derek and Boyd were fine.

“So what’s the problem? Did Derek not kill the thing?”

“No,” came Derek’s response. “I thought…I had felt…” Braeden shushed him, and his jaw tightened in frustration.

“The pattern resumed,” Scott said. “Another body was found yesterday.”

Stiles sighed. “Alright. So we just need to identify what this thing is, and figure out how to kill it. That seems pretty easy. Not that I’m disappointed to hear from you, Scott, but why couldn’t Deaton help you with this?”

Even from nearly three thousand miles away, Stiles could feel how the room suddenly got tense and, dare he say, awkward. His eyes flicked from Scott, who suddenly couldn’t look at him, to Derek and Braeden and Boyd and Erica, who all _refused_ to look at him. He couldn’t see Kira or Cora, but he imagined them both rooted off-frame.

“Scott?”

“Deaton’s…he’s been replaced? Sorta? I don’t really know, but he—”

Stiles almost choked on his tongue. “What?”

“Deaton, he’s, um…he can’t really help as much as he used to and—”

“He’s not the Hale emissary anymore,” Derek ground out.

Scott flinched.

Rolling his eyes, Stiles sighed. “Well, no shit, Sherlock,” he said. “That much became obvious once Scott was bitten. He’s clearly the McCall emissary. So Scott should be able to turn to him, as an alpha, to get whatever help emissaries give pack alphas.”

“But we’re not just the McCall Pack,” Erica explained.

“We’re the Hale Pack. Derek is our alpha,” Cora said. She stepped into the frame, finally, and shrugged. “Mine and Erica’s and Boyd’s and Malia’s and Peter’s. We’re the Hale Pack. We just work with the McCall Pack.”

“Okay, so that means the McCall Pack is everyone else, right?”

“Me, Kira, Isaac, and Allison,” Scott said.

Stiles sniffed and looked to the ceiling. He tried not to let his and Lydia’s exclusion wound him, but it couldn’t be helped. Not really. The pack might blame him for leaving, might even hate him for doing so, but he didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret putting his needs first, for encouraging Lydia to do the same. He didn’t have supernatural speed or strength or healing. He was human, and he’d been hurt so much without the chance to _heal_. Instead, he nodded. “I see.”

“It’s not like that,” Cora snapped quickly. “Stiles—”

“Just…tell me what I need to know and I’ll send you the information, okay? Bullet points. I don’t have all night.”

Derek cringed in the background, and Cora’s eyes were like open wounds watching Stiles through the video feed. Erica whimpered somewhere in the background.

Scott nodded with the same resignation he had when Stiles had told him he’d been accepted into NYU. “Alright. Drownings. Bite marks. Hot guys go missing first, then turn up dead at the spring. Derek, even with his alpha strength, couldn’t kill it. And ever since coming up from that spring, neither he nor Boyd have been able to stop shivering. That’s it. That’s all we’ve got. And that’s why we need your help.”

Stiles gave an acknowledging nod and jotted it all down in a notebook so he wouldn’t forget anything. Before the silence could get too heavy or awkward, he asked, “Why isn’t Deaton helping anymore, Scott?”

“Because the Hale Pack isn’t his responsibility anymore.”

Stiles held his breath for three, five, fifteen seconds, staring at Scott—his best friend, his brother—and knowing whatever he said next would have the weight, the strength, and the power to completely shatter everything. But Stiles didn’t want to assume. It was too terrible to even consider, too painful to think about. So before Scott could continue, Stiles said, “I’ll email you what I find,” and disconnected the call.

 

###

 

**To: scottmccall11@gmail.com**  
**From: stiles.stilinski@gmail.com  
** **Subject: spring monster**

**You’re probably dealing with a naiad. It’s a water spirit tied to the spring where it lives. It feeds off the life force of people it finds beautiful. Poison the spring to weaken it, then destroy the spring. Dry it out, fill it up, whatever. Just make sure it doesn’t spread to other water systems.**

**For Derek and Boyd, boil the naiad’s blood and have them drink it while it’s still steaming. At least a cup each. Should warm them right up.**

**I scanned and attached the bestiary pages, just in case.**

 

He never got a reply.

The same thing had happened with the harpy: after Stiles emailed Scott with how to heal the cuts on their hands—bleach in the wound broke down the venom, interestingly enough—there had been a hard and fast radio silence regarding it. Stiles had assumed that no news was good news, and didn’t push for answers when Scott answered his innocuous texts and silly snaps. It didn’t even come up in their occasional phone calls.

Considering the matter settled, Stiles tried not to think of it. He tried not to think of Braeden tenderly offering Derek, shivering beneath a blanket, a steaming mug of gourmet naiad blood. He tried not to think about Derek smiling warmly at her once the tremors subsided. And he certainly didn’t want to think about what they might have tried to warm him up in the meantime.

Stiles slammed his laptop shut and reached for his guitar with shaking hands. He hadn’t gotten to practice nearly as much as he’d wanted to, but he knew a few chords and had learned a few tunes. He had nothing solid to offer the instrument or anyone who happened to hear him play, but the sound was enough. The strumming and plucking of one hand, and the easy slide along the neck of the other. He played until Lydia got home. He played until she came in hours later to tell him she was going to bed. He played until she pried the instrument from his hands because his fingertips had started bleeding.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Stiles lied.

Kneeling before where Stiles sat on his bed, Lydia cleaned and bandaged each of his fingertips, then kissed his forehead when she stood. “I’m here whenever you’re ready to tell me.” Because she knew he was lying. Of course she knew. But that begged the question—what else did she know? What, in their efforts to stay strong for one another, were they keeping from each other?

He could come clean. He could tell her everything. But he didn’t. Stiles just watched them go round and round and round each time Lydia looked at him with a hurt pinch in her brow.

The pain in his fingertips wasn’t enough, as inconvenient as it was. So after class the next day, Stiles went to a tattoo parlor in the Village. On his left bicep, he got two bands, exactly like Scott’s. Because Scott was his brother and his best friend. They’d been through hell and back together, and they’d get through this, too. When the Nogitsune had him trapped in a sadistic game of Japanese Go, it was his alpha’s— _Scott’s_ —howl that brought him back. He needed something to remind him of it.

His arm hurt like a sunburn from his new tattoo. His hand hurt like wicked paper cuts from his split fingertips. His heart hurt like dying from seeing Braeden with Derek. And when the first two couldn’t distract from the third, Stiles went back to the tattoo parlor in the Village and got his lip pierced.

“Does it hurt?” Lydia asked when he came home with a horseshowe through his lip.

“No,” he said, and he didn’t lie. It swelled and it ached and it bruised and it stung, but he was finally, _finally_ distracted.

But when his phone buzzed in his pocket with an incoming text message, Stiles read it despite being in the middle of class.

When the message was from **Sourwolf** , Stiles read it despite knowing better.

When the message read, **Thanks for your help** , Stiles smiled despite everything.

To reply would be to open a door that could be dangerous, a door that could lead to pain and suffering and loss. The last time he did that, it had been through a technical death in an ice bath, not a text message. The last time he did that, it invited an evil fox spirit into his mind, not a werewolf back into his life. Stiles replied anyway.

**Glad to know you’re feeling better.**

Because he was.

 

###

 

Sometimes, the price of distraction was a heavy one. For Lydia, it had been Cora as a distraction from Jackson, and then Aiden as a distraction from Cora. For Stiles, it had been Malia as a distraction from Derek. _Revenge_ was probably a better description, if he were honest. _Break my heart? I’ll fuck your hot cousin, instead. Let her mark me up and scent me._ Not that it worked out the way he’d wanted it to. Sure, Derek’s eyes hardened whenever he saw Stiles after a particularly active night, but that could just as easily have been because of literally any number of other things. Stiles still had faint scars where Malia’s claws had raked his back when they’d fucked, and he was so damn pale, he doubted they’d fade.

But focusing on something physical and immediate—at first, Malia’s sexual appetite and animalistic urges, and now the slow healing process of piercings and tattoos—was an effective aid in ignoring something emotional and distant. He’d learned it when his mother died.

Adjusting to the piercing in his lip was painful. He chomped on the surgical steel horseshoe when he ate, pain bolting up through his jaw and into his skull. It got caught on his toothbrush and floss. His lip was bruised from the initial piercing, a dark purple that reminded him of when Gerard Argent had beaten him bloody. Eating anything salty or seasoned burned. And mouthwash? Mouthwash made his eyes water. It was worth it, though. Because focusing on all these petty things was so much better than thinking about Braeden’s hands on Derek’s shoulders. Especially when Derek had taken to texting him occasionally, often in the middle of Beacon Hills’ night.

 

**From: Sourwolf  
** **It’s supposed to be cold tomorrow. Wear a scarf.**

 

He tongued the horseshoe, letting the pain refocus his attention. He had an entire cart of books that needed to be reshelved, and it had to be done before his shift ended.

“Stiles?”

Stiles jumped and knocked several texts from a precarious stack on his cart. He whirled around and blinked when the familiar jolt of terror arced down his spine. Just like the first time in Greenwich Village. Because it wasn’t Derek, even though the guy _looked so much like him_ , even down to the thick, expressive eyebrows and artful stubble. But instead of green fire opal, his eyes were more like tiger’s eye.

“It is Stiles, right?” His smile was brilliant and familiar, just dancing the edge of awkward. But what had Stiles staring was his glasses because _holy shit, hello handsome_.

“Y-Yeah,” Stiles stammered. “Adam? Yeah, um, hi.” His cheeks warmed embarrassingly fast, and he ducked down to collect the fallen books. God, he must look a mess: shadows beneath his eyes, his lip bruised and tender, his limp hair beneath a beanie, and his hand mangled from playing guitar. And, of course, being a klutz—again. What an impression. When he stood, he laughed nervously, stacking all the books but one. He twirled it between his hands, spinning it at the corners. “You remembered my name.”

“Kind of a hard name to forget,” he said. He held a paper cup of coffee in his hand, casually kept out of reach of his clothes. “I’m more surprised you remembered mine, really.”

“Dude, I kinda spilled coffee all over you. Embarrassment is a strong emotion for locking down memories. You know how you sometimes lay awake at night and remember something humiliating you did, like, seven years ago, and you spend the next four hours kicking yourself over it? Yeah, that sort of thing.”

Adam laughed, and it was a really really nice sound. Bright and honest. The kind that pulled a smile to Stiles’ lips from somewhere dangerously like happiness—something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Adam was amused _by_ him and not _at his expense_.

“Besides, biblically, your name is the first name ever. So there’s that.” Stiles shrugged, then smirked when Adam laughed again. “Anyway, how are you? What are you doing here?”

“Good,” he said. “Better, now that I’ve run into you again.”

Stiles blushed harder, eyebrows raising.

“And I’m a graduate student,” Adam continued without missing a beat. “I was just about to drop off some texts in the return bin when I spotted you. Thought I’d come say hi.”

The smile Stiles wore morphed into something more genuine at that, and he nodded. “Cool. Awesome. It’s good to—”

“And,” Adam began, drawing out the word to gently interrupt him, “I was hoping to maybe take you up on that coffee offer, since I never heard from you.”

Stiles choked a little on Adam’s forwardness, but he recovered quickly. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. My roommate and I, we’re still getting settled, and I think I lost your card somewhere in the chaos. Unpacking and such.”

“Stiles,” Adam said, casually comforting. He grabbed the edge of his glasses and rested them atop his head, then shifted his stance into something more open. He was _accommodating_ him. “If you aren’t interested, you can say so. I promise you won’t bruise my ego.” He shrugged, his smile playfully flirtatious. “Not too badly, anyway.”

When Stiles had thrown his card away, he thought he’d accepted his desire for Derek as…something he just had to accept. Something impossible to deny, some force of nature, an integral part of who Stiles was—because that’s what it had felt like, what it had always felt like. But then he saw Braeden with Derek and it was like finding out about Jennifer Blake all over again. _It_ _hurt_ and _nothing helped_.

“No!” Stiles said quickly. He slammed the book back into the cart for emphasis. “That’s not it, I swear. I literally just misplaced your information in my messy apartment. I didn’t—”

Adam tilted his head.

“I hadn’t—”

Adam raised his eyebrows.

Fuck, even his expressions were like Derek’s. Stiles should just tell him to leave, because he knew exactly where it would lead. His heart throbbed painfully. He was weak. And he hurt.

“I’d love to treat you to coffee,” he finally got out.

Adam smiled. “When do you get off work?”

Nibbling on the tender flesh of his lip, Stiles checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes to reshelf the books on his cart, then dash off to class after grabbing something to eat. When he suddenly noticed how Adam watched his tongue on the ring in his lip, Stiles said, “I get off in fifteen. I just have to finish this up and I’ll meet you outside after I clock out. Sound good?”

“Perfect,” Adam said. He pulled another business card from his pocket and took Stiles’ hand to press it into his palm. “Text me if you need to cancel, alright? I won’t be offended.”

Stiles swallowed. Adam’s hands were warm. Instinctively, Stiles’ bandaged fingers wrapped around the rectangle of cardstock. He nodded numbly as he said, “I’ll text you when I’m off work.”

“Okay.” Adam nodded again before leaving Stiles to finish reshelving.

 

###

 

**From: Dad**  
**When’s your flight get in?**  
**Tell Lydia she can come home with you if she wants.  
** **Screw it. I’ll tell her myself.**

 

**From: Scott**  
**Pack Xmas Dec. 24. McCall-Stilinski Xmas Dec. 25.**  
**Mom’s making cheesecake.  
** **BE HERE.**

**From: Kira  
** **so excited to see yooooooooou. ^_^**

 

**From: Adam**  
**my last final is tuesday, if you want to meet up.**  
**are you heading home for the holidays?  
** **i’d like to see you before you go. ;)**

**From: Sourwolf  
** **You coming home for xmas?**

 

###

 

“I bought plane tickets last night.”

Stiles abandoned his textbook in favor to meeting Lydia’s gaze, though he continued to mouth at the end of his pencil. His expression betrayed every ounce of his apprehension. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, had absolutely refused to, despite the text messages blowing up his phone. He refused to acknowledge how he was terrified to go home.

A Thanksgiving crisis had been averted when an inconsiderate professor offered him an out: a heavily weighted project worth thirty-five percent of his grade was due immediately following the holiday. Stiles used it—as well as the astronomical price of airfare—as a plausible reason to stay at school. It was worth so much of his overall grade, there was no way he could risk his current A+ over something as silly as carelessly hurrying to leave town for the holiday. His dad hadn’t been too happy, but he’d understood.

_“Your grades are most important, even if I miss you.”_

_“Thanks for understanding, Dad.”_

Lydia had spent the break in England with her folks after making arrangements with her professors to turn in assignments electronically from half a world away. If Stiles were honest, photos of Lydia and Prada were his favorite text messages to get while he worked and dwelled and idled in their suddenly too-large and too-empty apartment.

Adam had made a point of inviting him to dinner—“It’s nothing serious. Just a place to go and be together with other people. We don’t even say Grace.”—which Stiles was way too willing to accept. Anything seemed better than the crushing silence ringing in his ears. Thanksgiving was an orphan’s dinner hosted by Adam’s friend. Stiles brought his mother’s chai cookies and did his best to make a good impression. His dad was worried, so to reassure him, Stiles’ texted him a picture of he and Adam with matching smiles and glasses of wine. Apparently, Adam had taken it as some sort of gesture, because in thanks, he had kissed Stiles until he was begging, then fucked him into the mattress of one of the host’s guest rooms until Stiles moaned himself hoarse. The next morning, Stiles rode Adam hard and fast and bit where Adam wanted to kiss sweetly because no one wearing a face so similar to Derek Hale’s should ever fuck him that good. They dented the wall with the rocking headboard before braving New York City on Black Friday, fingers laced.

Truth be told, Stiles preferred a repeat of Thanksgiving to an awkward Christmas. Even if, upon her return, Lydia arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow to the hickeys and beard-burn that reddened Stiles’ jaw and neck, her proud smirk was enough to soothe the flare of embarrassment. New York, new start, right?

“Scott said something about a Pack Christmas and then a McCall-Stilinski Christmas, so I guess as long as we’re there for the 24th and the 25th…”

Lydia’s expression hardened, her mouth pressed into a thin line of annoyance. “I’m aware. When were you going to talk to me about it?”

He offered a hesitant smile. “I…wasn’t? And I kinda thought you’d want to visit your folks in England again.”

Lydia huffed in annoyance and abandoned her steeping tea in the kitchen to sit beside Stiles on the couch. She ran her fingers through his hair, dragging her nails against his scalp in a way that bled the tension from his shoulders. He didn’t remember being tense.

“Stiles,” she said, gently. “We need to talk. I know…” She stopped for a moment and sighed. “I know we haven’t been as honest with each other as we wanted to be. I don’t—I won’t presume to know why you’ve kept the things you have, but I think it best if we just…get it all out in the open, okay?”

It sounded oddly like a break-up, but that couldn’t be right. Even if he anticipated it to be just as painful. Stiles dropped his pencil against his textbook and watched it settle into the crevice between pages.

He considered clinging to the lie, considered keeping Lydia in the dark about his questionable decisions and his sleeplessness and the downward spiral it felt he’d been caught in for…he didn’t even remember how long. The last time he’d felt this listless, this adrift, was immediately after his mother died. Which was disgusting and insulting to her memory because Derek fucking Hale was not worth that much emotional anguish. If he told himself enough, if he told Lydia enough, it might actually be true.

Stiles rested his head in his hands. “Lydia, I haven’t—”

“I slept with Jackson over Thanksgiving break,” she said, interrupting him.

Brows knitted, Stiles had the beginnings of an incredulous snarl. “You _what_?”

“When I saw my parents, we spent some time in London. Jackson hadn’t changed his number. We met up. We fucked.”

Stiles continued staring.

“I’m not proud of it,” she snapped, her voice pitching.

He chuckled against his better judgment.

“I’m not,” she insisted. “Especially because I’ve been texting Cora since the harpies.”

His amusement evaporated like flash steam. Lydia was texting Cora. Derek was texting him. What a fucking pair they were, pining and broken and hurting and stupidly going back for more. “How is she?” he asked, looking down to pick at his nails.

“She’s okay. Things have been rough, but she’s…she’s okay.” She traced the bottom hem of her dress with nervous fingers. “Derek’s been talking about you lately. She said he’s—”

Stiles raised a hand to stop her. When she fell silent, he waited a few moments before saying, “I met someone a few months back, near the top of the school year. His name is Adam. I’ve been seeing him every so often since. He, um…he looks like Derek.” He sighed and pulled his phone out to thumb through the photo gallery until he found the picture of him and Adam, the one from Thanksgiving, smiling for the shot with full wine glasses. He handed Lydia his phone.

“Holy shit, Stiles.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t—I had initially thought—Stiles, this is bad.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re sleeping with him?”

Stiles nodded.

Lydia swiped her thumb left. He didn’t need to see her face to know she’d found the second photo, the one Stiles refused to send to his father, though Adam had playfully suggested it. The small gasp she gave was indication enough that she’d found Adam kissing him.

He hadn’t been expecting it. He’d just wanted to snap something quick to show his dad he was with friends, and he was okay. Holidays, birthdays, milestones—they were always rough, the jagged edges of loss and longing buried beneath layers and layers of good friends and good company. It was how it’d always been since his mother’s death; it was how they’d learned to somehow carry on without her. The photo was supposed to be reassurance for his worried dad, nothing more. But then Adam had abandoned his wine glass on the table behind where they’d been standing, had cupped his jaw and pulled him into such a thorough and languid kiss that Stiles had lost all sense of time. He hadn’t even known Adam snapped the shot until he heard the shutter sound.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” Adam murmured, rubbing noses briefly.

Stiles had been too dumbstruck to really respond. So he’d smiled and kissed Adam again.

“Stiles,” Lydia breathed.

“I know,” he said, because there wasn’t anything else to say, really.

She set his phone on the coffee table. “It hasn’t been quiet since we’ve moved.”

He nodded. “Figured.” Then said, “I haven’t been sleeping much.”

“Figured,” she said.

When she closed the scarce three inches between them and pulled him into a crushing hug, Stiles felt cracked open and raw. He forced himself through the stuttered breathing that, more often than not, heralded tears, and Lydia let him. He hugged her back just as fiercely, and when she sniffled against the crook of his neck, he held her tighter.

“I’ll email you the ticket information,” she said, and the spell between them was broken. She pulled away. Stiles let her go. Neither would let the other wallow, but this catharsis had been necessary. As guilty as Stiles felt, it was somehow reaffirming that Lydia knew and still looked at him the same. “Your semester finishes before mine, so you’re going home ahead of me.”

“Sounds good,” he said.

“And this isn’t the same, you know,” she said, and Stiles sometimes wondered if Lydia really could read minds. “As the Nogitsune. This isn’t the same. This weakness is human. This weakness makes you human.”

Without thinking, Stiles took Lydia by the cheeks and kissed her forehead, a kiss she ducked in to and accepted with a gentle hold on his wrists. “Thanks, Lyds.”

 

###

           

Stiles pulled deeply from his cigarette and watched his breath mist in the cold winter air. Snow lay thickly on the ground from a recent storm, and the white powder caked around the edges of his boots. When the wind kicked up from gentle breeze to gust, he pulled his scarf a little tighter and ducked into his leather jacket. At least Beacon Hills wouldn't be this miserably cold. Probably miserable in other ways, but not cold. He leaned against a nearby streetlight and flicked the ash of his cig; that was when he heard the camera shutter.

Adam lowered his phone, his wide smile honest and enamored. It hurt Stiles to be looked at like that. It was so close to what he’d wanted but could never have. So. Fucking. Close. But he knew Adam’s wounded confusion to be so much harder to witness, so he kept it to himself.

Slinging his duffle bag over his shoulder, Stiles sauntered over to Adam with a smirk tugging at his lips. He took one more drag of his smoke before tossing it onto the slushed sidewalk. “You took a picture of me?”

“You had this James Dean, daydream sort of look in your eye,” Adam explained, and Stiles found it adorable how his cheeks flushed despite the cold.

“James Dean, huh?” he teased. Stiles wrapped his hand around Adam’s holding the phone and turned the screen to face him. It was an impressive, candid shot—and despite what Stiles typically thought of his looks, it was a hot photo.

“Well, if James Dean was a bit of a hipster.”

Stiles swatted Adam’s chest with a chuckle. “You ass.” His laughter died down until he wore the smirk that made Adam swallow thickly—which he did. Lydia called it _sultry_. If nothing else, Stiles had certainly grown into his own. “He had a thing with Marlon Brando, you know. Hella bi, with Marilyn, too.”

“Are you saying I’m Brando here?” Adam teased. “Who’s your Marilyn, then?”

Stiles laughed. “You are. Lydia is Brando. You know, the one I admire and would rather be _like_ than be _with_.”

“Are you saying you want to be with me?”

When Adam hauled him in by the hips, Stiles draped his arms over Adam’s shoulders as if it were natural. And it was. He’d done it with Derek enough—draped his arms over his shoulders, played with the hair at the nape of his neck before pulling his werewolf in for a kiss. It distracted him from how Adam’s question carved him out. He closed his eyes and sighed. To be fair, he was spending his last night in town at Adam’s, was having Adam see him off the next morning. Stiles told himself it was to minimize longing texts from Adam while he was in Beacon Hills, not to make sure Derek smelled Adam all over him if they saw each other.

Derek. His ex-something that Adam looked remarkably like. His ex-something that he wasn’t completely over. His ex-something that still lived back in his home town. Where he was flying to. The next morning.

Stiles wanted to throw up.

To Adam, he said, “Send me the pic, yeah?”

“Later,” Adam answered. It was as if he was wounded by Stiles’ lack of an answer, but was brushing it aside, the way he always did when Stiles didn’t respond the way he’d hoped. Something suspiciously like guilt twisted in Stiles’ stomach when Adam’s smile seemed pinched. “Let’s head back to mine, and I’ll make something to warm you up.”

That night, Stiles made a point to fuck Adam how he wanted it—slow and sincere, like they were something more than favorite bedmates to one another, like maybe Stiles liked him for more than how similar he was to Derek. He let Adam mark him up with bruising kisses, let him mouth at his sweaty skin between rounds, let him make and maintain eye-contact.

At the airport the next morning, both of them exhausted in the best ways, Stiles didn’t question the impulse to steal Adam’s glasses for just a moment, just to make Adam laugh, just to take the opportunity to kiss his smiling lips while wearing the dark frames. This time, when a kiss was captured on camera, Stiles was the one holding the phone.

What he’d done didn’t catch up to him until he was in the air. Stiles didn’t get airsick, passive or otherwise, but after heaving miserably into one of the provided bags, he accepted ginger ale from the stewardess with a weak smile of thanks.

 

###

 

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“Stiles—”

“Son, what are you—”

Stiles trembled with fury.

Derek, in his house, standing in his living room.

His father, on the couch, his arm in a sling, a wicked bruise across his cheek.

Derek, hovering near his father, as if tending to him.

His father, at ease with Derek, as if this was a regular thing.

Stiles never knew what it felt like when Lydia needed to scream, but he imagined the violence thrumming through him in that moment might be close.

It was Derek who moved first—not that his dad seemed particularly capable, laid up and injured as he was—to try to quell the situation, but Stiles took the half-step back that had him pressed against the closed front door. When his nostrils flared, after his aborted attempt at approaching, Stiles knew Derek scented Adam. Or maybe it was the fear he couldn’t quite shake, because his dad was hurt and no one bothered to tell him. Regardless, it gave him a sick satisfaction to watch Derek’s expression crack a fraction.

“Stiles, listen—”

And it made him so angry to hear Derek say his name like a plea. It made him so angry to see Derek wearing that achingly wounded expression, the same one he had when things ended. If he thought slamming his fist into Derek’s perfectly chiseled jaw would actually do anything, Stiles would swing, busted knuckles be damned. He tensed up and squared his shoulders for a fight he wanted, but didn’t know how to win. Whatever expression Stiles wore was enough for Derek to snap his jaw shut, and it would have to be enough for now. Stiles didn’t come home for this shit.

“We didn’t expect you for another week, almost,” his father said. “You said the 16th and it’s the 10th and…” He sighed and shifted his injured arm. “It’s not that bad, kid, I promise.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Stiles said lamely. It was the whole reason behind exchanging the ticket Lydia originally booked for him.

“Derek here was just—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Stiles snapped, but his voice trembled just as much as his clenched fists. He shifted his grip on his duffle bag and felt a spike of shame for speaking to his father so rudely. His father looked wounded, and it was enough for Stiles not to care if Derek knew how he was affected. “I just—I can’t right now.” He flicked his angry gaze to Derek, then looking pleadingly at his dad. It wasn’t an apology, but it was the best he could do.

His father nodded, and it was all the permission he needed.

Stiles shoved past Derek towards the stairs, checking him with his shoulder. It did little to budge the alpha werewolf, but its intent was clear: letting Derek get a good whiff of how displeased he had made Stiles, and how pleased another man had made him.

“Stiles, will you just—”

Stiles whirled around half-way up the stairs, flushed with a fresh wave of anger. “Just leave, Derek,” he said. As if he owed Derek anything, let alone his time. “You don’t have any business here. You never have.” He climbed the rest of his stairs to his room.

A few text messages didn’t fix things.

A few text messages didn’t make things better.

A few text messages wasn’t enough.

 

###

 

Midnight.

The Witching Hour.

Stiles moved through the preserve with his eyes closed. His legs were steady, his steps sure despite the uneven ground beneath him. One hand held slightly aloft, fingertips reaching for something he couldn’t see, but was sure he felt; the other, clutching the strap of his bag across his chest.

When Deaton had given him the sack of mountain ash to contain the kanima, several yards remained to be lined while Stiles only had a fistful of ash left. Deaton had said something about faith. Deaton had said something about humanity. Deaton had said something about believing. So Stiles had heaved a breath, closed his eyes, and walked steadily, step by step, trailing the ash from his hand.

What should not have covered several yards somehow had.

Deaton later said things about doors—

_When is a door not a door?_

_When it’s ajar._

—and darkness—

_What does everyone have but no one can lose?_

_Their shadow._

Stiles’ shadow had been the Nogitsune.

Stiles didn’t need another ice bath. He didn’t need the weight of his father’s impending death. He didn’t need to brave another storm. He just needed to follow the pulse, the pull, that drove him from his bed, drove him to the preserve, drove him towards the Nemeton. It called him, and its song echoed in the stillness he willed into his heart.

Dead leaves and twigs on the ground crunched beneath his shoes, the only sound accompanying his beating heart, his careful breaths. The preserve was quiet, as if its ecosystems anticipated an oncoming storm. He hadn’t heard it this quiet, hadn’t felt it this still, since Jennifer Blake started offering innocent blood to the Nemeton. Had he any sense of self-preservation, he might have been uneasy. As it was, he felt more comfortable, more confident, with every step.

He stopped after what felt like miles, but just as likely, he could turn around and find he hadn’t left his Jeep at all. He opened his eyes. His Jeep was nowhere in sight, but the Nemeton lay before him. From here—after staring down the barrel of a gun, facing down alpha werewolves armed with just a bat, chasing darachs, battling a spirit of chaos in a game of Japanese Go—it wasn’t so menacing. It was just a tree stump with a dilapidated root cellar beneath it. What stood before him was all that remained of a very old, very powerful, and well-loved tree.

People worshipped here. People believed here.

_“Let me in.”_

_Stiles tied to a chair in the Eichen House basement. Malia, beside him. Oliver with a power drill in hand._

_“Let me in.”_

_Oliver leering over Malia. The drill motor revved._

_“Let me in.”_

_“Okay! Alright! Just don’t hurt her!”_

Stiles hoisted himself onto what remained of the Nemeton and took measured steps towards its center. Even with what little moonlight filtered through the forest canopy, he could see the rings of age. Too many to count, the stump’s width alone was staggering. Stiles dropped his bag, then knelt to rummage through it.

The Nogitsune spoke in riddles.

“A useful tool for who in darkness dwell,” Stiles muttered to no one. Something that sounded eerily like the Nogitsune’s whisper in his mind, even if his voice was his own. “Within you, corrupting like a deadly spell. What am I?”

He found the box of wolfsbane bullets and loaded them into the clip of his handgun. He pulled the weapon from where its weight rested comfortably against his ribs and slid the clip into place. When he turned the weapon over and cocked it, the click of a bullet entering the chamber waiting to fire, was reassuring. He’d been on the wrong end of the barrel so many times… He had a few clips and several rounds. When he finished loading the reserves, he shoved the filled clips into the pockets of his jeans.

“Poison.”

Stiles spun around smoothly, leveling the barrel of his weapon at whoever had followed him, whoever was stupid enough to approach him. But he knew who it was. One of the betas must have said something—they’d been watching his house at least as long as he’d been in town. Stiles recognized the voice even before he felt the impulse to engage.

Standing at the edge of the Nemeton, Derek watched Stiles where he stood at the stump’s center. His kaleidoscope eyes were clear, worried, his stance casual. Stiles saw the tension in his jaw, the displeased set of his mouth. His hands rested in the pockets of his jacket, and though he was older, somehow more solid, surer of himself, he looked so much like the Derek who told Stiles and Scott they’d wandered onto private property. When it became clear Stiles had no intention of lowering his weapon, Derek flashed his eyes—scope red. Stiles saw the glint of fangs. “What are you doing here, Stiles?”

He didn’t know.

He didn’t _know_.

He couldn’t remember what had brought him here. Couldn’t remember why he’d listened to whatever called him. A dream? No. The weapon was heavy in his hand. It was real.

Derek shifted as if to approach—he must have sensed the uptick in Stiles’ heartbeat, but Stiles tightened his grip on his weapon. He centered his stance, bracing for the weapon’s recoil should he decide to fire.

Fire. At Derek.

What the fuck?

Derek stopped short and showed his open hands to placate Stiles’ nerves.

Stiles had lost time. Stiles couldn’t _remember_. It was like the Nogitsune all over again.

“A nightmare for some,” Stiles started. He watched the beginnings of fear bleed into Derek’s face. He was thinking of the Nogitsune, too. “For others, as a savior I come. My hands, cold and bleak, it's the warm hearts they seek. What am I?”

“Stiles.” Derek leapt onto the Nemeton’s surface, all fluid, born-wolf grace and misplaced faith. He didn’t think Stiles would shoot.

But Stiles would. God, he would. He _wanted_ to. He was coming apart at the seams and falling into some abyss he couldn’t define or explain or understand and Derek was trying to reach him. Even as his finger hovered over the trigger, trembling to lodge a wolfsbane bullet into his chest, Derek was trying to reach him. Always trying to pull him back before he fell too far, always— _no_ —it was always someone else, he was always chasing something bigger, greater, better. The power of an alpha. Jennifer Blake. Braeden. Derek had always been Stiles’ sweetest punishment, the most effective lesson in worthlessness, so good Stiles couldn’t help but come back for more.

Stiles took a step back and raised the weapon a little higher. No wolf could survive a wolfsbane bullet between the eyes. “What am I?” he asked again.

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “But you should put the gun down and come home.” He held out his hand—human fingers reaching for him—and took a tentative step forward. “Stiles, please.”

“A nightmare for some, for others, as a savior I come,” Stiles barked, his voice filling the air and drowning out Derek’s plea. His hands continued to shake, but he clutched the weapon until his knuckles bleached. His eyes burned. He didn’t know why Derek was here. He didn’t even know why _he_ was here. Something with the Nemeton. Something about the Witching Hour. Something in his bag. Yes, his bag. He’d brought something with him. A grimoire. A grimoire he’d brought from New York. Symbols and sigils and components and sacred words he’d never seen before but could somehow pronounce. “My hands, cold and bleak, it’s the warm hearts they seek,” Stiles said. “What am I?”

But Derek kept moving, closing the distance between them with each careful stride. His muscles coiled in anticipation to duck, dodge, and move to let the bullet hit a superficial place. Stiles wondered if Derek approached every person pointing a gun at him this carefully, or if he was just special because they’d fucked for a while. “Stiles.”

“What am I?”

_“I’m a thousand years old. YOU CAN’T KILL ME.”_

“I don’t know.” Derek steadily approached, prowling almost. Low and careful. “Stiles.”

When Stiles returned to himself, brought back from trying to decipher the puzzle of the last few hours, Derek’s chest was flush against the barrel of the gun. He stood there, unflinching and unafraid, watching Stiles intently. Slowly, so very slowly, he wrapped his hand around Stiles’ where his finger rested on the trigger, and guided the weapon down and away. Stiles let him, closed his eyes, and the adrenaline in his system was a tangible flood.

“Death,” Stiles said softly. “I am Death.”

Derek slid the gun from Stiles’ weakening grip. He discharged the ready bullet and freed the clip before tucking the weapon into the back of his jeans. Then he cupped Stiles’ face and forced him to meet his gaze.

His achingly beautiful eyes roamed his features, and Stiles knew he was cataloging his condition—he’d done it enough in the past, searching every inch of his tender human flesh for injury. Stiles had no physical wounds to speak of. His hurt was intangible. Humans were easy to fool. Wolves, not so much. Stiles knew he must have smelled of exhaustion and anxiety, of bitter melancholy and sour sadness. The shadows beneath his eyes were darker, and his clothes hung from his frame a bit more than they normally did. He was pale. He was barely keeping it together.

“What are you doing out here?” Derek asked, again, his voice soft.

It hurt to look into Derek’s eyes. It was too much. Derek was too much. Stiles tried to pull away, but Derek held him fast, rested their foreheads together. Derek breathed him in, and Stiles wanted to cry for how right it felt. “Derek…”

“Tell me.”

Stiles shook his head. From when Derek stepped in front of his Jeep after getting shot with wolfsbane, to Derek telling Stiles to run before the kanima attacked, to Stiles putting Derek’s name on the king in a game of chess, to Derek standing between Stiles and the Oni when Stiles was a prisoner in his own mind.  Whenever things came crashing down, they came back together every time. Every fucking time.

But not this time.

“Just take me home,” Stiles sighed.

Derek’s expression hardened, jaw tightening with something like resolution. He gave a single nod before leaning close to nuzzle Stiles once and pull away. He let Stiles gather his things before leading the way to were the Camaro was parked.

It would be a long drive.

Stiles knew. Stiles always knew. It would end in burning flames, not paradise. He and Derek weren’t some epic love story. They’d fucked. That was it.

Stiles left his Jeep at the preserve and climbed into the passenger seat of Derek’s Camaro, tossed his bag onto the floorboards and buckled himself in. Beside him, after starting the engine, Derek flicked worried glances to Stiles, who ignored them. He could hardly keep his wild eyes on the road. Not that Stiles blamed him, really. He had pointed a wolfsbane-loaded gun at him not twenty minutes prior, had started speaking in riddles, had been acting like the Nogitsune—the thing that ran Scott through with a sword; the thing that nearly killed Allison, Aiden, Isaac; the thing that nearly destroyed everything.

And Stiles was weak. Weak of heart, weak of will, weak of character.

“I won’t shoot you while you’re driving,” Stiles sighed. “I wouldn’t want to wreck.”

“When’d you get a gun?” Derek asked, turning away from staring. He kept his hands at ten and two, watched the streak of lane lines, the glare of the Camaro’s headlights on reflectors.

“Dad got it for me when I turned eighteen. Got one for Lydia, too. Been carrying it whenever I can.”

Derek hummed thoughtfully. “I never noticed.” _I’ve stripped you bare_ , Derek seemed to imply. _I’ve learned every inch of your body. I know how to make you scream, how to make you gasp, how to take you apart. I would have noticed._

“Left it in the car whenever there was a chance you’d find it,” Stiles said, shrugging. “Carried it every other time.” _Every other time since, because you don’t get to do that anymore._

Derek drove Stiles home to an empty house. The lights were off, every window dark, the driveway vacant. Despite being injured, his father could still push pencils and finish paperwork, so ‘light duty’ was an available option the sheriff took.

“Thanks for the ride,” Stiles said. He climbed out of the car and closed the door. When a second door slammed, Stiles only rolled his eyes before entering the house. Derek followed him inside, but it was when Stiles heard him taking off his coat that he turned and scowled. “What are you doing?”

“What are _you_ doing?” Derek countered, advancing on Stiles. It forced him to take a step back in his own home. The gentle placation, the careful tone, the worried, unguarded eyes were gone, and Stiles was left with nothing but an angry, snarling, alpha werewolf. “Going out to the Nemeton in the middle of the night, alone, after dropping off the face of the fucking Earth for months. You’re erratic and not yourself and terrified. What the hell is going on?”

The impulse was to balk, to be outraged, to defend himself against the offensive accusations. He was habituated. The person he was only a few years prior would have been loud and snarky and would spit a few insults of his own before storming off to fume indignantly. But Stiles wasn’t that person anymore. He wasn’t a gangly kid who didn’t know how to operate his too-quickly growing limbs. He wasn’t awash with sudden feelings of warmth and affection he didn’t think he’d ever feel. He wasn’t yearning for experiences he’d felt excluded from.

No, he was tired. Tired of this exhausting business of feeling.

So he smirked, and scoffed, and looked at Derek as if the werewolf was as naive as Stiles had been the first time they’d tumbled into bed together.

“And what the fuck do you know about me, Derek Hale? Hm?” Stiles raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. It was how the Nogitsune had pulled the strings of his puppet face, but it was the natural expression Stiles adopted when he prepared to gut someone with his words.

Skinny, defenseless Stiles stepped into Derek Hale’s space unabashedly unafraid of the quiet outrage humming through the alpha’s body. He leaned close, impossibly closer, and ducked his head just enough to run the tip of his nose along the edge of Derek’s jaw. When Derek shuddered involuntarily, Stiles slid a hand behind him and yanked his gun from the waistband of Derek’s pants.

The wolf reached for him, but Stiles slinked beyond his grasp just long enough to slam another wolfsbane-loaded clip into the weapon before pointing it at Derek. Again. But that was the same moment Derek caught him. Derek froze with his hand on the weapon. The safety was still locked. Stiles hadn’t cocked it.

“You think you know me?” Stiles yanked himself from Derek’s hold—something only possible if the alpha allowed it—and shoved the weapon back into the holster beneath his jacket. “You don’t know the first thing about me. Do you have any idea what a year can do to someone? Do you have any idea what three thousand miles of distance can achieve?”

“It takes more than hair dye and a piece of metal in your lip to change who you are,” Derek growled, a tinge of disgust in his voice.

Stiles huffed, unimpressed. “Get out of my house.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Lydia told Cora—”

“What?” Stiles interrupted, eyes narrowing. “What did Lydia tell Cora? What, about me, could possibly be so fucking interesting that Lydia decided to bore your sister with it?”

“…that you’re not doing well.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” And Derek said it with such raw sincerity, such genuine, fearful worry, Stiles had to grit his teeth against the stupid residual urge to reach out and _reassure_ Derek. To pull him close and hold him, just let him know he was there, that he wasn’t going anywhere, that everything was okay. “I can smell it on you,” Derek continued quietly, and he started closing the distance between them again. “I can see it. I can hear it in your voice, in the rhythm of your heartbeat. We’re worried.”

Stiles wanted to scream. “‘We’?”

“Me,” Derek clarified quickly. “I’m worried.”

Stiles still wanted to scream. He wouldn’t give Derek what he wanted, but most of the fight had left him. Still tired of it all, he grabbed his previously discarded bag and just turned to climb the stairs to his room. He didn’t bother with how Derek welcomed himself to follow—as if the guy ever respected boundaries. But then Stiles stilled at his bedroom door, because that was wrong. That was the anger, the hurt, the exhaustion.

“Stiles?”

Derek had always asked. Derek had always listened—not only to Stiles’ words, but also the signals Stiles gave off unknowingly. Derek had always _tried_.

When Derek rested a hand on the small of Stiles’ back, Stiles’ spine snapped straight as if shocked and he bit his lip. It sent bolts of things he didn’t want to feel through him. He stepped away from the touch and into his room. “What about—” He stopped, sighed, turned to face Derek as the wolf followed him. “I don’t want you here if—” But he couldn’t finish that thought, either. Instead, he said, “I heard that you’ve been out and about with some other girl. Braeden. She…” Was she part of the pack? Was she Derek’s girlfriend? Were they just fucking? Scott dropped her name a few times when they talked, but…

Stiles braced for the crash and burn.

Derek nodded, as if he expected the question, and kept his gaze lowered. After taking a few steps closer to Stiles, he said, “What you heard is true, but I can’t stop thinking about you.” And he glanced up through his lashes, anticipating rejection.

Instead, Stiles smirked. “I’ve been there, too, a few times.” He swallowed as Derek stepped into his space. His breath caught when Derek put his hands on his hips, thumb rubbing absently just below the hem of his shirt.

“It’s been a while since I’ve even heard from her. It didn’t last past the naiad.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Stiles said, running a hand up Derek’s arm to grip his bicep. “You looked rough in the video.”

Derek nodded again, but still couldn’t seem to meet Stiles’ eyes. “Because of you, Stiles. Because of the information you sent, because of how quickly you got it to us.”

“Hey.” Stiles took Derek’s face gently between his palms and guided it upward until he could relish the intensity of Derek’s eyes. “I will always be there to help. Always. Understand? You don’t have to—” Stiles didn’t get to finish his speech, because Derek got it.

Derek always seemed to get it.

“Can I kiss you?” he interrupted, inching forward. He ran his nose up the side of Stiles’ jaw, moved down to nuzzle at his neck.

Stiles swallowed, exhaled a shaky breath. He clung to Derek’s arms to ground himself. How close the wolf pressed against him threw his balance askew. It would take nothing for Derek to herd Stiles towards the bed, for Stiles to topple back on the mattress and pull Derek with him.

But he couldn’t. Not this time.

Derek dragged his damp, parted lips up the column of Stiles’ throat, and Stiles tilted his head back to allow him easy movement. But no kiss came, and no kiss would until Stiles said yes.

“No,” Stiles said. And it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Derek jerked back as if struck. Confusion knitted his brows, hurt bled into his expressively honest eyes. He searched Stiles’ expression for some sign of a tease, of a joke, something to tell him Stiles was just giving him a hard time. He’d find none.

He wanted to apologize, to take it all back, to do _something_ to wipe that look from Derek’s face. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t let himself be sorry, as much as it hurt. “You should go,” Stiles murmured, pulling away from Derek’s warmth and proximity. He wiped his face and turned his back to him, staring intently at the window so he wouldn’t have to see Derek leave.

But he heard Derek leave—the wisp of hurried steps, the slam of the front door, the purr of the Camaro’s engine.

And with Derek’s departure came the first hitched breath, the first burn of tears, the first sob of his return to Beacon Hills.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited as much as I could, but I also wanted to post it as soon as possible. Please feel free to mention any typos, as I may have missed a few.
> 
> I kinda sorta have a beta reader, but he hasn't gotten back to me, and I've been wanting to post for a while.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	4. Track 4: Out of the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A troubling vision drives Lydia home where, once again, she and Stiles get tangled with pack business and the supernatural.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artwork by the amazing [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/). It was made completely independently of my fic, but it was just so perfect, I asked for permission to include it--to which the answer was yes. :)
> 
> This chapter is *definitely* longer than the others (there's no two ways about it), and it's taken me a long time to write. I'm positive chapters will just be long, now, and take a while to develop, edit (even superficially), and post. I can't promise updates will be at regular intervals, but I *can* promise I will continue to steadily work on it.
> 
> *WARNING*: mild NSFW; blood; gore; MONSTERS

(art by [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/))

 

 

There were countless reasons Lydia was thankful for Stiles. Beyond his unwavering loyalty and his clear and obvious love for her, he was incredibly sharp and easily kept up with her. He was entertaining, clever, and fiercely supportive. He was also a very fast learner.

It was this final quality of Stiles’ that Lydia appreciated the most after he brought home a guitar. There were rarely any ear-splitting noises from his room across the hall, and while hearing the same few chords over and over was sometimes annoying, she was spared the misery of headaches. It was only a matter of weeks before Stiles managed to comfortably play a few songs. What Lydia recognized of them, she hummed as she studied or cleaned or dressed.

The truly satisfying part of it all, however, was when she heard Stiles sing.

His voice, a gentle croon—rough at the edges, but so _full_ in the middle—floated through the apartment with the grace of a first snowfall. He sang with everything he had, honestly and unashamed and heartfelt. He plucked the strings feather-light, and kept his voice barely above a murmur—he tried so hard not to bother her with his newfound hobby—but the walls were thin. She heard him above the static in her head and the chaos whirling viciously in her heart. It reminded her that if she had nothing else, she had him.

She became so used to him singing, the gentle lull of his timbre, the occasional abrupt stop as he replayed a chord, it was strange to one day hear him _talking_ while he plucked strings. Conversationally, as if he were on the phone, but not with anyone familiar. Lydia crossed the small hallway from her room to his where the door was ajar. Carefully, she pressed her palm flat and eased it open.

And there was Stiles, his guitar in his lap in front of his computer.

“Stiles?”

He turned to the door with a bright smile. “Oh, hey Lyds! I didn’t hear you there. Why don’t you come say hi?”

She arched her eyebrows and leaned a bit further into the room. It was empty, but on the screen of the laptop was a mirrored image Stiles’ own face. He was recording a video.

“No one will believe my roommate is awesome unless they see you. You know the rules of the internet—pics or it didn’t happen.”

“Of course,” she said. And she walked in to lean over Stiles’ shoulder. She smiled into the camera lens just above the screen and waved her fingers. “Hi, I’m Lydia, Stiles’ roommate.”

To the camera, Stiles said, “Didn’t I tell you she was beautiful?”

She tried not to smile. “Are you vlogging now?”

“Not really,” he said. “Just recording a cover. Wanna hear?”

“Sure.” She ruffled his hair fondly before exiting the shot. Sitting cross-legged by the door of the room, well away from where his camera could see, the smile she fought couldn’t be held back any longer. It was good to see him brimming with confidence, preening and proud of himself. He deserved to be, and he’d been working hard to learn his new instrument.

Stiles cleared his throat. He strummed the guitar once. “So, anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

She laughed, pressing a hand to her lips to try to stifle it. “Really?”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “Yes, really.”

She waved him on, and he gave her a playful snarl. Turning back to the camera, he said, “Wonderwall,” then started to play.

Verse, bridge, chorus, and as silly as it was, as obvious of a joke as it was, his fingers moved with surety from one chord to the next; his hand strummed without the briefest hesitation. Pink tinged his face high on his cheeks, and Lydia didn’t know if it was because of the camera or because of her. But bourbon eyes glanced away from the camera to her every now and then, and Lydia could only grin in response, mouth the lyrics with him while he sang.

“And maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me…”

Maybe.

 

###

 

Lydia had endured a lot of not knowing.

Not knowing why Jackson suddenly left her; not knowing what she saw crash through a video store window; not knowing why Stiles, Scott, and Allison were so intent on keeping her from Derek Hale; not knowing why she heard things no one else heard.

Scott and Derek told them Deucalion had killed Jennifer Blake, but it wasn’t true. Despite what they’d witnessed, Jennifer survived, only to meet her end at the hands of Peter Hale.

Lydia knew. Lydia had _felt it_.

It was as if the garrote used to try to kill Lydia had tied them temporarily together, and she’d choked with Jennifer’s last breath. She’d screamed into her pillow that night as waves of pain, anger, and anguish washed through her—emotions she later assumed were echoes of Jennifer’s final moments. She’d screamed and cried despite the comforting strokes of Cora’s fingers through her hair and her warmth at her back.

Lydia was a banshee. That something Stiles had intuited or deduced, that something Lydia had come to realize was more than insanity, was something Jennifer Blake identified before trying to strangle her. It was new and it was terrifying and it was strangely validating. She was _something_ —more than dead weight, more than crazy, more than human.

If anyone knew what it meant to be not-human, Lydia imagined Cora did. If anyone knew what it was to lose what you know and be afraid, Lydia imagined Cora would. If anyone would stay with her through it all, Lydia imagined Cora would.

“I heard you,” Cora had murmured against her temple. They were in Lydia’s bed, and the sheer curtains fluttered in the evening breeze. The pressure of Jennifer Blake’s conjured storm ebbed away with her death. Relief and desperation had colored their kisses, had driven their touches. Cora, poisoned by Jennifer Blake. Lydia, strangled by Jennifer Blake. Somehow, both alive and together and so very _grateful_. “Derek and I both did. Stopped us in our tracks. I knew it was you. He turned the car around.”

Lydia had smiled, despite herself. “You came back for me.” It was an almost question, more of a statement; something Lydia’s confidence wouldn’t allow to seem uncertain, though Lydia herself was.

Cora had hummed, and nuzzled beneath Lydia’s jaw before kissing her. She didn’t confirm or deny, but Lydia had taken her affection as answer enough. After all, Cora had a knack for coming back, as if she just couldn’t stay away.

But then summer came, and with it, Cora left and didn’t come back.

Lydia felt waves of pain, anger, and anguish for completely different reasons. She’d felt like she was dying, like something was slowly crushing her chest. But unlike when Jennifer Blake tried to crush her windpipe, there was no tangible mark, nothing to face down and fight against. There was just the tingle in her fingertips wanting to touch, and an automated message telling her Cora’s number had been disconnected. She screamed, but it was Stiles who came to her, not Cora. And not because he’d heard her, but because he needed her.

His face was blotchy, his eyes red-rimmed as he stood at her front door. He’d been crying, and didn’t bother trying to hide it. “Have you…?”

She didn’t need him to finish, and he knew he didn’t have to. They were sleeping with siblings. They knew about each other, crossed paths a few times at Derek’s loft, though Cora preferred Lydia’s bed. They didn’t talk about it—no one did. It just…was. Lydia shook her head.

And how his expression crumbled was a fresh blow. When he wiped his face, Lydia noticed the dark bruising around his knuckles. “Derek’s gone, too,” he said, voice as weak as Lydia felt. As if to prove his point, he called Derek’s phone, and Lydia heard an automated voice—not for a disconnected line, but voicemail. “I’ve been trying for days.”

She tried to swallow around the tightness in her throat, wondering if she looked as wrecked as Stiles did, if she wore her longing as poignantly as him. Losing their Hales tore down calculated defenses, but they’d always seen through each other, regardless. “Maybe they just needed some time away,” she offered weakly. “They’d only just found each other, then that bitch—” Lydia stopped herself, but maybe anger would be better than this weight in her chest, this _certainty_ that Cora had left her for good.

Just like Jackson.

Stiles nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked. Her parents weren’t home. It wouldn’t matter.

Stiles nodded again, as if he didn’t trust himself to speak. When he walked in, he looked about to break, and Lydia did the only thing she could think of to hold him together—she hugged him.

“He was with her,” Stiles said. His voice, though muffled by Lydia’s hair, was still thick with bitter hurt. He wrapped his arms around her and _clung_. “He was _fucking her_.”

Jennifer Blake. Of fucking course. Lydia held him tighter.

“I saw her throw herself at him,” he continued, “after she took my dad. How she kissed him, and he _just gave into it_. She took him, and then she took my dad. He nearly died for her. She nearly killed my dad. And he just—he just—” Stiles suddenly pulled away. Scrubbing his face, he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Lydia. I shouldn’t have—I should probably—shit, this isn’t what I planned. I’d just wanted—”

Lydia didn’t fight his withdrawal, but it had been nice to be held, to be needed. She offered him what she could of a smile, though on the verge of tears herself. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to apologize. I, um, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you came.”

“I should go,” he managed.

“No,” she said, taking him by the wrist. “It’s late, and you’re in no shape to drive. My parents aren’t home. We have a guest room. Just stay.”

Stiles stayed in the guest room, but the middle of the night found Lydia across the hall and knocking on the cracked door. When Stiles answered, Lydia said, “It hurts. It feels like mourning. She never said anything.”

“It’s loss,” Stiles murmured. “Every time I doze off, I snap awake and remember he’s gone. He was silent, too.”

“I keep hoping she’ll come through the window. I’ve left it open, and even dreamed she did a couple of times. I just start crying all over again when I realize it was a dream.”

He didn’t ask if she loved her. She didn’t ask if he loved him.

Stiles’ mouth twitched before he spoke. “Do you want me to stay up with you?”

She bit her lip and nodded, eyes burning anew with his offer.

They sat side by side with their backs against Lydia’s headboard. He held her hand and let her talk, let her rave, let her cry. And when she exhausted herself, he let her curl up against him and fall asleep.

It was the first time they shared a bed.

 

###

 

Lydia’s phone rang somewhere between getting off the subway and rounding the corner to her block. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but because it was familiar, because she usually isolated herself with her headphones, she rarely remembered what happened between the subway and her apartment. But sometime after climbing up the stairs to the sidewalk and spotting her building, Cora called. It was enough to make her stop, to make her consider ignoring the call to return to her playlist, but she didn’t. And she wouldn’t. Not ever, not when it came to Cora.

She hated herself for it.

“Hey, what’s up?” Lydia resumed her walk. Home—or what passed for home—was in sight, and the sky was darkening. As much as New York snowfalls were romanticized, Lydia could do without getting caught in one.

Cora gave a huff that sounded relieved. “Hey, Lydia, um, hi.”

“Hi,” Lydia said, and she couldn’t bite back a smile. Cora’s voice was warm. Despite electronic pulses and satellite waves, she sounded something like summer, something like honey, rough and soft and comforting.

It was shortly after the harpy incident when Cora’s name flashed on Lydia’s phone for the first time since moving to New York. It was just what Lydia had been hoping for, had been planning. Because while Derek’s wounds slowly closed in the background of a Skype call, Cora had acknowledged how little Lydia and Stiles owed them. Lydia had used the word ‘pack.’ She’d used the word ‘always.’ She’d met Cora’s distraught gaze and, though she had meant every word, knew exactly what weaknesses those dark eyes held.

Thus, Lydia opened communication between her and Cora without _actually_ making the first move. In one moment of open vulnerability, Lydia did what had to be done for the sake of closure. Pack meant something—more than friends, more than family, something _other_ that wolves craved. It was the foundation of everything Cora had known and lost, so it was only natural for her to sink her claws in and hold on. But if Lydia were honest, Cora sank her claws in a long time ago, and Lydia was helpless to escape, though she tried.

She reached her building and entered the lobby, taking a moment to wipe her feet on the mat. She waited for Cora to speak. Once upon a time, conversation flowed as easily between them. This stilted, awkward cadence flared the hurt anew for Lydia, but it was a necessary step.

It had hurt to see Jackson again, but the pain eased. She slept with him and felt nothing.

It hurt to speak to Cora again, but the pain would ease. Eventually, she’d feel nothing.

“Um, how are you?” Cora asked.

“Good,” Lydia chirped, approaching the elevator. “Hey, I’m about to head up to my apartment, so if I lose you, I’ll call you back, okay?”

“Yeah,” came the hesitant reply.

“Anyway,” Lydia plowed on. Casual was the name of the game, and Lydia could do casual. She punched the button for her floor and leaned in the corner of the elevator. “I’m just getting back from a friend’s.” Cora didn’t need to know Lydia sometimes slept with said friend when studying became too boring or, well, when she just wanted to. Unlike the men she took to bed, the women she slept with seemed so much more amiable about casual sex. Casual. The name of the game. With bedmates and classmates, with Stiles and with Cora, and basically, anyone. Casual. “So, how are you?”

“Good.” The tension in Cora’s voice was unmistakable. Lydia pursed her lips. Eventually, Cora would feel nothing too, if it wasn’t already the case. Honestly, things would be better for everyone involved.

“That’s good,” Lydia said as the elevator dinged. She let her suspicions be known through the silence hanging between them while she walked to her apartment, the phone still pressed to her ear. After she opened the door, she dropped her keys in a small bowl and toed off her shoes before making her way to her room. Crossing the living room, she said, “You know, I don’t need to hear your heartbeat to know you’re lying. It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me, but I know something’s wrong. I can’t imagine—”

Cora said quickly, “It’s not me.”

Lydia sighed.

“It’s nothing, really. Just a favor to ask.”

Rolling her eyes, she huffed into the line. “There’s nothing I have to offer you, Cora, outside of the bestiary. I’ll email it to you if you want, but Stiles is already in Beacon Hills. You can just get it from him.”

“Stiles isn’t talking to anyone.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He’s pretty much locked himself in his room. The Sheriff tells us he’s fine, and we can tell from our patrols and watches over the house—”

“Your _what_?”

When Cora didn’t answer immediately, Lydia waited, her patience infinite in the heavy silence over the phone line.

“It’s a long story,” the wolf sighed. “And it’s not really mine to tell. Suffice it to say, something’s going on with Stiles, and we’re worried.”

Lydia stopped. Her oversized purse slid from her shoulder into the crook of her elbow. She hadn’t had visions. She hadn’t had nightmares. There were no whispers or screams or other hallucinations to indicate impending danger and death. Certainly nothing pertaining to Stiles.

“Lydia, calm down,” Cora said. Could she really hear her heartbeat over the reception of a cell phone? “It’s nothing—well, we don’t know if it’s anything serious, that’s why I’m calling.”

Lydia hummed in acknowledgement. Pack business. Of course. But this was what Lydia wanted, wasn’t it? Distance. Casual. _Stiles._ Eventually, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. “What happened?”

“Derek found him at the Nemeton,” Cora said, her voice hushed and urgent. “It was bad. He’s really shaken.”

“Who’s shaken? Stiles?” Lydia asked, going into her room. A half-packed suitcase sat on her bed with various items littered across the mattress.

“No,” Cora said. “Derek is.”

Lydia bit the inside of her cheek. This was not her jurisdiction or her problem.

“He mentioned wolfsbane bullets.” Cora sighed into the line. “Did you know Stiles carries a gun now?”

Lydia just tossed things into her suitcase. Sending Stiles home ahead of her had been a gamble. Should something happen with Derek, Stiles would be left to navigate the situation alone. Despite how Stiles and Scott both loudly claimed their brotherly bond stronger than ever, Lydia lived with Stiles—she had an idea of how often they talked despite Stiles’ secrecy on the matter. She’d also caught him staring at his tattoo in the bathroom mirror as if he wasn’t sure why he’d gotten it. Things weren’t the same between them. Not bad, necessarily, but clearly strained. So whatever happened with Derek, Stiles would be without support.

She’d catch a plane within a day or two, sooner if she could.

“Lydia?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you know?”

She hesitated before saying, “Yes.”

Cora’s voice hardened on the line. “And you didn’t think to tell anyone?”

“I didn’t think it was anyone’s business,” Lydia said briskly.

“He pulled it on Derek.”

Lydia honestly didn’t have anything to say to that. It was…wildly out of character for Stiles. As much as he hurt, as angry as he was, Stiles _loved_ Derek. Of that, Lydia was sure. Just as she could never willingly hurt Cora, as angry and wounded as she was. Had been. Still was. Still dealing with. Lydia offered what she could as an explanation. “Well, Derek must have—”

“Anyway,” Cora continued, and Lydia was offended. “I was hoping you could go through his room, see if you can find anything that might—”

“No,” Lydia snapped.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she answered, firm. “Clearly Derek did something untoward or threatening. If he can’t respect Stiles’ wishes, Stiles is completely within his rights to do what’s necessary to _make him respect them_.” Jesus, Stiles needed her. If this story circled through the pack, if Stiles was painted as some sort of villain and Derek some sort of victim, she needed to be there. Stiles wouldn’t have anyone else’s unconditional support. It would be same adversity as announcing their move to New York.

She filled her suitcase quickly while she continued with Cora. “I won’t go digging through his stuff so your brother can find some way to win him back. It’s not my job to help Derek, Cora, and I respect Stiles too much to betray him like that.”

“Lydia,” Cora pleaded, “you don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lydia snarled. “I’m not betraying Stiles. Not for you, and certainly not for Derek.”

Before she disconnected the call, Cora’s tinny voice echoed in the otherwise silent room: “He was talking in riddles!”

Lydia stared at the darkened screen of her phone for several heartbeats, clutched in her shaking fist, before hurling it into the suitcase. Her breathing came quick, her knees weak, and she eased herself onto her bed beside her bags.

Riddles.

Pointing a gun at Derek.

But she should have heard something, should have felt something. How she hadn’t screamed or even felt the urge assured Derek’s life wasn’t in any real danger from Stiles. And maybe Stiles wasn’t in danger, either. Maybe Cora was wrong. Maybe this was just a run-of-the-mill break-up with both parties reacting poorly to one another.

Maybe.

Maybe…

Lydia shot up from the bed with purpose humming in her veins, purpose that burned out as soon as she crossed the hallway.

Hasty key strokes tapped loudly through this very door more nights than most, and once the sun rose and they danced around and between each other while they readied for class, Stiles’ movements were sluggish, his eyes disconnected and distant, his smiles faint. When sleep eventually claimed him, it was usually while he tried to study in the living room, a pencil held limply between his fingers with a book in his lap. Even when Lydia took off his shoes and put a pillow beneath his head, he hardly stirred. A few murmured half-words, a shift in his hips or shoulders, but he didn’t wake. Sometimes, she’d sit on the edge of the coffee table to just watch him for a while, the steady rise and fall of his chest, that he was there, that he was safe. She wanted this for him, and he’d wanted it for himself—this peace, this quiet, this stillness somehow found in a humming, thriving city. Stiles, brave until the end, cared enough about his well-being, and enough about Lydia’s, to stand up against a pair of indignant alpha werewolves and tell them they were leaving.

Looking at it now, it all seemed so simple: if something robbed Stiles of what he’d fought so hard to have, Lydia would find out what it was and stop it.

It wasn't the first time Lydia had entered Stiles' room looking for clues about him. With Aiden at her back, she'd once found a pair of scissors stabbed into the mattress of his bed. The red thread marking connections he didn’t fully understand between notes, pictures, and ideas on his wall had been tied to the scissors’ handle. A web of crimson spread like gunshot splatter across his room. Aiden hadn't understood what it meant. Lydia hadn't either. She'd plucked the threads and heard whispers she couldn't decipher. It felt like a lifetime ago.

She still wasn't sure if it had been left by Stiles or the Nogitsune wearing his face.

Despite trembling hand, she pushed the door open.

But the room on the other side wasn’t the same bedroom from Beacon Hills. No scissors, no red yarn. She was alone, in the apartment she shared with Stiles, in New York.

Dove-grey walls greeted her, dark where stray beams of afternoon sun was dampened by curtains. A few pieces of framed art hung here and there, no wall completely bare, and beneath them were cheap book shelves where Stiles shoved anything and everything that didn’t have a place. His closet door was ajar, the outlines of hung shirts and hoodies visible where she stood in the doorway. Stiles’ desk was a mess, the only clear space obviously where his laptop had been, the laptop he’d taken home with him. The familiar bed with its navy and silver striped linens wasn’t exactly made, but rumpled, as if Stiles just tossed the blanket up in his haste to leave.

It seemed completely and utterly ordinary.

Lydia hugged herself and clamped a thumb between her teeth. She stared at the far wall where a layered cut-out art was framed and hung—a leafless tree eerily similar to her own inverted renditions of the Nemeton; then she studied the collage of photos hanging near his bed, above one of his nightstands. Even from the doorway, she recognized the familiar outlines of Allison’s doe eyes and Isaac’s scarf, the scruffy hair Scott had in sophomore year and the golden waves of Erica’s mane.

The carpet was soft beneath her bare feet, her steps silent as she drifted until her knees pressed against the edge of the nightstand. She flitted through color shots and black and white photos, Polaroids and Canon prints of Stiles with friends and family and pack. The Sheriff’s easy grin, the same one Stiles wore when he was particularly fond; Mrs. McCall and Kira each kissing one of Scott’s cheeks while he beamed for the camera; a particularly candid shot of herself on Stiles’ shoulders and Erica on Boyd’s in a game of chicken from the summer before senior year; a grey-scale Polaroid Stiles took of them. They were lying on his couch—Cora playfully licking Lydia’s jaw while Stiles flopped awkwardly against her to take the picture. A group shot of that one Halloween where, over too many Jell-O shots and too much candy corn, she, Kira, and Stiles had collectively decided to dress as various incarnations of Red Riding Hood to match their respective Big Bad Wolves.

Stiles in a red leather motor jacket and a pair of tight black jeans, baseball bat slung over his shoulder; Kira in an accordion pleat black skirt, dark leggings and combat boots, the hood of her red hoodie pulled up over her head to show the fox ears stitched at the top; Lydia in a bright red cocktail dress with slick leather platform pumps. Allison and Isaac had done the same costumes that year, and their photo from France was pasted beside the one from Beacon Hills—Allison in a dark crimson tunic dress with a black leather jacket and knee-high boots. Still pack even a world apart. The wolves weren’t nearly as creative, all black leather-clad and undeserving of photos—even Scott—though Stiles had taken them anyway.

They’d hit a few parties before Derek caved and got them bottles to empty at the preserve around a bonfire.

That night, Lydia peeled Cora’s jacket off of her beneath the stars.

That night, Stiles bared his throat in the shadows beneath Derek’s glowing red eyes.

It had been a good night, but morning left her feeling listless and unfulfilled. And she’d seen it echoed back in Stiles’ own vacant gaze. Halloween of senior year when they tried desperately to repair the broken bonds between them.

But before Lydia turned away from the photo collage, she stopped. So wrapped up in the photos and the memories accompanying them, she’d missed the ones that were absent. Torn paper where pictures were once pasted, swaths of dried and chipped glue in their wake.

Sometime between when he’d assembled the collage just before they moved to New York and now, Stiles ripped out photographs. The longer Lydia looked, the more she realized what she wasn’t seeing, and it was the one thing Stiles had so carefully buried beneath pictures of pack and family and home.

Or more specifically, Derek _with Stiles_.

Lydia yanked open the top drawer of the nightstand before her and found the missing photographs, bent and torn and crumpled as if angrily stashed away. She collected and sorted through them, and just as she thought, every single one was a shot of Derek and Stiles. Laughing, teasing, kissing. They looked so _happy_. The most damaged picture, the one crumpled worst—like Stiles had balled his fist around it after clawing it from the collage—was one she could almost feel resonating anguish.

Stiles and Derek in bed together, sleep-rumpled and soft. Stiles is clearly taking the picture with his phone, arm stretched as he holds the device up and away. He’s smiling lazily into the camera while Derek’s fast asleep against him, nose pressed against his throat. It was an intimate shot, something where neither were the men they presented to the world, their secret selves only shared with one another.

She dropped the photos back into the drawer and slammed it shut to follow…something. A familiar pull she learned to heed over the years. She turned slowly, eyes raking along the wall, over the imperfect patch from a paint war Lydia had started and the local art Stiles hung to distract from it. With a tentative hand, she ran her fingertips over the rough paint, then dragged them over the starchy fabric of the curtains as she walked past the window.

Lydia watched what she touched, focused on that soft hum calling her across Stiles’ room. The pictures on the wall seemed the most likely catalyst for a premonition, the most likely to trigger a vision about the pack, about Stiles. All she’d learned was that Stiles was just as hurt and angry as he’d been in the beginning. Time and distance and distraction had done almost nothing to quell the anguish festering in his heart. It didn’t stop her surprise when, unheedingly, her foot bumped into Stiles’ guitar where it rested upright in the corner of the room.

Oh, God, _of course_. The strings.

The fucking _strings_. Instead of red yarn spanning the length of a wall, they were nylon wrapped in copper wire spanning the length of a guitar.

She crouched before the instrument and hugged her knees to her chest, nails digging into the meat of her thigh anxiously. After taking a breath, she reached out with her free hand and dragged her fingertips along the length of a string, from neck to sound chamber. She flinched when more than just the gentle vibrations of the string bombarded her senses, but braved the onslaught and plucked.

Bim.

Unintelligible murmurs, like an overcrowded cocktail party. Spikes of laughter—Stiles’ laughter. Breathed words and sharp whispers. Werewolf howls. But somewhere, though the wall of sound building layer by layer in her head, through rushing water, screams, broken Nogitsune riddles, the Sheriff’s gentle tenor, she faintly heard…a conversation?

_“…I know…my fault for thinking…something it’s not…”_

_“…iles…don’t do…it’s not…”_

Bim.

The words faded in and out, as if she were bobbing in the sea, muffled then clear; near enough to make out, then too far to distinguish more than the voices. One voice was Stiles’—she’d recognize it anywhere. And the other…the other was Derek’s.

_“…your fault…deceitful…at least I…honesty…”_

_“…never lied to you…please…”_

_“No. No, you don’t…”_   Stiles’ voice cracked, teary even through the fog of the vision. _“…this isn’t…wanted…”_

Bim.

 _“…fucking broken…”_   Stiles’ voice again. Not a conversation. _“…fuck this fuck this FUCK THIS…”_

_“…please…I just need…”_

_“…Adam…so…?”_

_“Derek…!”_

Chanting. Dim at first, just another part of the sound rattling around Lydia’s head, but growing louder. It wasn’t Darach chanting. It wasn’t Gregorian chanting. It was something wholly different. Something…it was Stiles. Stiles chanting. Stiles’ voice wrapped around words Lydia had never heard before. And it was Stiles. _Stiles._

Lydia snatched her hand away and scrambled back until she bumped into the nightstand. There, her lungs struggled to keep pace with her racing heart, and she waited for a hallucination. Hands reaching from the shadowed closet, faces pressing through the wall, something, anything.

But nothing came.

She exhaled shakily before hauling herself to her feet. She wobbled, hand out to catch herself against the mattress should she stumble, but this wasn’t a time for weakness. And this wasn’t a time to honor such petty things as _privacy_ and _trust_. Not when Stiles was chanting in some language she couldn’t even identify, let alone understand.

Lydia tore his room apart.

Her hands skated intently between the mattress and box spring, beneath the bed itself. She checked his desk, in every drawer, and skimmed through the pages of every notebook she found. She flipped through his textbooks, his novels, his reference books, fanning the pages to find receipts and home-made flash cards and post-its and scraps of paper with memos to himself. She checked his closet, between his hangers and within the pockets of his hoodies, in every shoebox—Vans, Converse, Toms—he kept and insisted were viable storage containers.

An old Timberlands box was where she found them—his notes—and since when did Stiles own a pair of Timberlands? But in that large forest-covered box, she found a stack of plain single-subject notebooks—something he might have picked up from the campus supply store—the metal coils bent, the flimsy covers creased and worn, the pages soft to the touch. How well-worn they were made them seem old, but she couldn’t be sure of their age. Had Stiles been writing in these back in high school, or were these the result of his recent late-night toiling?

She found recipes, notes and definitions. She found what looked like journal entries. She found symbols and sigils and terrifyingly accurate-looking illustrations, and Lydia had never known Stiles to be an artist. Listings of planetary cycles, maps of electromagnetic currents, notes on obscure bodies of water. Mythologies, and stories, and rumors, and spells. How much his chest hurt, how little he slept, how his head always ached. How he knew no peace, how he believed he was losing his mind again.

Everything in the short, jagged lines of Stiles’ hasty scrawl. The same handwriting that left so many sweet notes on the mirror for her if they’d missed each other that morning, the same handwriting that had described what she meant to him in the back of her senior yearbook.

Lydia wanted to cry. She wanted to throw up.

Instead of wondering how things escalated so quickly without her knowledge, instead of questioning how good a friend she was for having missed this, instead of blaming herself, Lydia reorganized Stiles’ room to hide the evidence of her raid. She’d tell Stiles eventually, but there was no need to leave his room in shambles.

Once his room was in order, she finished packing her bag, and shut off the lights and heater before leaving.

On her way to the airport, she called and switched her flight.

She’d be back in Beacon Hills before dinner.

 

###

 

With a delayed flight, Lydia arrived in Beacon Hills after dinner and well into dessert, but it didn’t matter because no one expected her. She spent the cab ride from the airport with bouncing leg and tapping fingers, but she tipped the driver well when he finally pulled to a stop in front of the Stilinski home and unloaded her bags.

The cars filling the driveway and lined the lawn filled her with dread. The Sheriff’s cruiser, Stiles’ Jeep—both to be expected. But there was Derek’s Camero, Mrs. McCall’s Toyota, and behind Stiles’ Jeep, Scott’s dirt bike.

“Do you need help taking these to the door, ma’am?” the driver asked.

Lydia declined distractedly, but directed him to leave them at the edge of the driveway.  She watched the retreating taillights of the cab round the corner before she gathered her things and rolled her bags to the front door. There, she waited for a heartbeat before using her key to let herself in—no need to knock, no need to ring the doorbell. She’d lived here for over a year—it was her home as much as it was Stiles’.

The door swung open to reveal what could only be an intervention.

Stiles sat in the center of the couch, alone, his hands clasped together and pressed between his knees. His shoulders were hunched, his gaze downcast with his firm mouth pulled into a frown, but only for the half-breath it took to realize she stood in the doorway.

From their perches on the coffee table in front of Stiles, Scott and his mother turned to her, and Mrs. McCall was the first to offer a smile.

The Sheriff sat in his favorite chair, his arm in a sling, but he seemed genuinely surprised to see her. And Derek, who’d been standing where he could watch Stiles from over Scott’s shoulder, just raised an eyebrow to her arrival.

“Lydia.” Her name, reverent as ever on Stiles’ tongue, breathed in relief just as much as in surprise as he stood. He crossed the living room with long, hurried strides, but when he reached her, he just stared. Confusion, hurt, and gratitude flitted across his face, reflected in his dark eyes, and she wondered if it was the first show of emotion he’d allowed himself since…the start of whatever it was she’d interrupted.

She smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Miss me?”

“ _Yes_.” And the hug he pulled her into was so sincere, so desperate, Lydia could do little more than wrap her arms around him and cling to him in turn. It felt like how he hugged her when Derek had first left, and her heart ached for him.

He didn’t let her go when he asked, “What are you doing here? Your flight isn’t supposed to get in for another few days!”

Over Stiles’ shoulder, Lydia met Derek’s expectant expression, and though she tried not to give anything away, she doubted Derek missed the connection between Cora’s phone call and Lydia’s early return home. She held his gaze for a few, heavy moments before she closed her eyes and hugged Stiles’ tighter. _This_ was the reason she’d come home early, this young man wrapped in her arms, not Derek.

“You know,” Lydia said, letting Stiles go when he shifted to pull away, “I thought I would enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet, but I didn’t. It was too much space. Too much silence. So I came home.” She combed her fingers through his unruly hair before pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I guess I missed you,” she huffed, feigning inconvenience.

Stiles laughed, genuine and sweet. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Perfect,” she said, making her voice bright despite the gloom hanging in the air. “You can help me bring my bags upstairs.”

“Lydia, I’ll help with those,” Derek said, approaching them from where he lingered on the periphery of the room. Stiles took a step back, forced his expression to close down quickly. Maybe he worried he’d have to fight Derek to get the bags. But Derek’s voice was warm, and the smile he wore was placating. “Stiles, why don’t you—”

Lydia didn’t like it.

“I didn’t ask you, Derek,” she sniped, flashing a pleasantly menacing smile. It would be silly to physically step between Stiles and Derek, but her body still itched with the urge to do so.

Derek’s jaw tightened, eyes withdrawn as he watched her, as he _sized her up_. But Lydia stood her ground. She cocked her head to the side, eyebrows raised in question, in challenge. She shifted her weight to jut out a hip, her arms crossed in expectation. _Well?_

“You know, it’s getting late,” Mrs. McCall announced, standing from her coffee table seat. All eyes turned to her, and the tension between Derek and Lydia broke. “Scott, honey, why don’t we head home and let Lydia get settled?” To Lydia, she said, “I’m sure you had a long flight.”

“I was delayed for a while in Chicago,” Lydia answered in agreement. “And I was really looking forward to a hot shower and some tea before bed.”

Mrs. McCall smiled in that way mothers do to convey understanding beyond whatever spoken, and Lydia’s appreciation for her in that moment knew no bounds. She placed her hands on Scott’s shoulders and squeezed until her son rose to his feet and muttered something echoing her sentiments. They said goodnight to the Sheriff, who stood and saw them out. They waved and nodded to Derek, who did the same in return, then they shimmied past Lydia and her bags at the doorway and left.

The Sheriff hovered awkwardly between Derek and Lydia, unsure of whether he needed to intervene or leave them alone. Whether from being the Sheriff or from being a father, he clearly knew the game Lydia played, but it wasn’t clear whether he was impressed or disappointed with her for it. Sometimes, the two went hand-in-hand. “It’s good to have you home, Red,” he said, and Lydia smiled warmly in return. “Stiles, help her get settled and we can continue our conversation some other time?”

“Sure thing, Dad.” Everyone knew Stiles had no intention of continuing the conversation, but he did grab Lydia’s bags and yank them over the threshold into the house.

Derek faintly scowled. Lydia’s smile grew.

Clapping Derek’s back, the Sheriff said, “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Hale, but I think I’m going to call it a night.” When his gaze shifted to Lydia, he said, “Been feeling my age the last few days. We’ll catch up over breakfast? You can tell me how your folks are doing and how your finals went.”

Lydia closed the distance between them and the Sheriff pulled her into a hug with his uninjured arm. She kissed his cheek. “I’ll let you slide this time, but don’t make a habit of it,” she teased. “And feel better, okay?” She ran a light hand over his sling, frowning. She hadn’t known he’d been hurt, and though it didn’t look bad, she could only imagine how Stiles felt. She was grateful to be home.

Behind her, Stiles closed the front door. “I’m gonna drop these in your room, alright?”

“That’s great. Thanks, Stiles.”

“Here, son,” the Sheriff said. “I’ll take her purse so you don’t drop that suitcase.”

Father and son disappeared upstairs in an amiable but strained silence, leaving Lydia with Derek alone in the living room. And though social etiquette pointed to Derek soon making his own exit, he remained.

He watched the stairs, listening to Stiles and the Sheriff putter around on the second floor with Lydia’s bags. Once he seemed sure neither was coming downstairs anytime soon, he focused his sharp gaze on the young woman in front of him. “Cora called you.”

“She did.”

“And?”

Lydia pursed her lips condescendingly. “And what?”

“Did you find anything?”

She drew her brows and narrowed her eyes. “I told her I wouldn’t do it.”

Blinking incredulously, Derek’s shock quickly morphed into anger. He raised his shoulders, flexed his biceps, made himself seem bigger. Through gritted teeth, he growled, “What the hell, Lydia? Do you have any idea how erratic he’s been? Do you even know what’s going on?”

“Cora told me you were worried.” She shrugged. “But people change, Derek. I’m not going to betray his trust because he’s not the Stiles _you_ remember.”

With a snarl, Derek surged into her space, his face mere inches from hers. He flashed his red eyes—eyes like Peter’s—and bared elongated canines. She didn’t flinch. “This isn’t about that,” he spat. “I’m not so petty, Lydia. This isn’t about the hair dye, or the lip ring, or the tattoo, or smelling like he fucked someone before getting on the plane. This is about him losing time, this is about him wandering to the Nemeton in the middle of the night, this is about him pulling a gun on me.”

_Smelling like he fucked someone before getting on the plane._

Adam. Derek’s look-a-like. Derek’s _replacement_.

Damn it, Stiles.

Again, Lydia shrugged. “People change,” she repeated. “And whatever Stiles is or isn’t going through, I think you’re the last person he’d accept any sort of concern from.”

She hit a nerve.

His eyes blinked back to their regular iridescent shade, fangs retreating. The set of his jaw spoke more of self-loathing than true anger, and she considered the possibility of Derek simply needing to lash out—and he knew she could take it. He’d behaved similarly to her when Boyd and Erica had gone missing, back when the Alpha Pack tried to recruit him what felt like a lifetime ago.

“He’s locked us all out,” Derek said with a note of resignation. He took a step back, a little more sincere, a little more vulnerable. “He’s not talking to anyone about anything. Not Scott, not his father. You’re the last hope we have at figuring out what’s going on. I think maybe—” But he stopped himself, scowled with a huff and looked away.

“What do you think, Derek?” she asked, keeping her voice level, gently imploring. She didn’t want to dismiss his concern, not entirely, but she also didn’t want to mislead Derek about Stiles’ desires. Like she and Cora, Stiles and Derek cared about each other, but there was simply too much hurt, too little healing, things left unsaid that shouldn’t have been, secrets revealed that should have been kept. It was just…too much.

“I think he’s developing powers,” Derek said. “Powers he maybe doesn’t understand and can’t control.”

Lydia kept her face carefully blank, focused on keeping her breathing steady. Any change in her demeanor, however, could simply be shock from what he’d said. Derek wouldn’t be able to glean the reason from her heartbeat or her scent, just the result.

The wolf went on, “With Deaton as the McCall Pack emissary, I—the Hale Pack…the Hale Pack needs one, and maybe Stiles’ subconscious or—or something—is answering the call. I don’t know. I tried to talk to him but—”

“You think he’s supposed to be your emissary?” asked Lydia, raising an eyebrow.

Derek nodded, still unable to meet her eyes, and shrugged. “Maybe not _supposed to be_ , but _could be_. Is becoming. He hung up before Scott could explain the possibility or the need. And then I found him at the Nemeton talking in riddles.”

“Whether he agrees or not, whether he even cares or not, Derek, his business is his own. You have to understand that,” Lydia said, not unkindly.

“I do,” he conceded, tucking in on himself. “But we need to know he’s okay, at least.” _I need to know he’s okay_ , Lydia filled in for him. “So, please, just let us know if he’s okay.” _Please let me know if he’s okay_. Lydia saw a rush of guilt flood Derek, how it saddened his eyes and softened the way he held his shoulders, how his eyebrows pinched in a plea, how he could only meet Lydia’s gaze for a few moments before looking away again.

“If it’s something we can’t handle,” she said, “I’ll ask for help.”

Derek opened his mouth as if to argue, but descending loping footsteps forced him to snap his jaw shut. Stiles appeared at the bottom of the stairs, his smile a little strained, a little hopeful, as he looked between Derek and Lydia.

Lydia reached out and rubbed Derek’s arm. He didn’t recoil, so she took it as a good sign. “You should probably head home.” When Derek nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets, she added, “Give Cora my regards.”

“I will.” He gave her a final nod, then looked to Stiles.

Stiles’ made his face carefully blank in response.

Defeat was evident in the stiffness of his departing nod, in the way Derek left without looking to either of them again. It was only when the door shut behind Derek and Lydia flicked the deadbolt in place that Stiles’ ventured for anything more than emotional neutrality.

“Did you really want a shower and tea?” he asked.

“Put the kettle on. I’ll meet you in your room in twenty.”

 

###

 

Lydia spent her first night back in Beacon Hills resolutely ignoring a series of texts from Cora in favor of tending to Stiles. At least Derek did as she’d asked and given Cora her regards.

“You wanna answer those?” Stiles asked after her phone chimed for a ninth time. Always a fidget, he liked to braid and unbraid Lydia’s hair while they talked—it gave his hands something to do and kept them close. He leaned against the headboard of his bed, and Lydia sat with her back to him between his spread legs.

Lydia shook her head, hummed her declination. “Not important.” She silenced her phone.

Their conversation started out slow, with the obligatory discussion of finals and term papers and when final grades would be posted. Scores and GPAs weren’t an issue for either of them, but it filled the space and allowed them to get reacquainted after their brief stint apart and whatever Stiles had endured in Lydia’s absence. But eventually, pleasantries ran out and left them with only meaningful conversation.

“So what sort of pack meeting did I interrupt tonight? It looked like an intervention.”

Stiles chuckled, combing his fingers through her hair—still damp from her hot shower—to gently coax out tangles. From a small set of speakers, soft acoustic guitar played, the sort of instrumental covers Stiles sometimes tried to play, and he turned up the volume before answering. He leaned over her shoulder, his breath warm against the side of her neck. This close, she could smell the faint scent of tobacco clinging to his clothes, the sharp contrasting freshness of his cologne, the coffee he had while she drank her tea. “It pretty much was. You have no idea how much of a life saver you are.”

“Why?”

“Because it was miserable, and I just wanted it to end.”

“No, I mean, why did they decide you needed an intervention?”

He sighed and rested his forehead against her shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said, afraid.

“You don’t know the reason they thought you needed an intervention, or the reason they thought you needed an intervention is something you don’t understand?”

“We spend too much time together,” he muttered fondly, and he dragged his nose up her neck until it met her hairline. He cleared his throat as he pulled away. It was a production on his part, given how the mattress bounced with his movements, anyway, for him to maneuver his long legs to one side of the bed and get up. He walked to the window and yanked up the unlocked panel before sitting on the edge.

Lydia watched Stiles pull a crushed pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans and slip one of them between his lips. He seemed to find something worth studying outside as he cupped his hand around the tip and lit it. With the filter between his lips, he said, “So, basically, everyone here is total trash and I’m just really pissed off.” His voice was loud, sarcastic, his eyes aimed at the ceiling. He took a drag and held it for a second before sighing it out the window. “Because _something_ no one thought was important enough to tell me about hurt my dad, which itself was something no one thought was important enough to tell me about.”

Lydia furrowed her brows and unfolded herself from where she sat on Stiles’ bed. She joined him at the window and leaned against the sill opposite him. And while she tried to give him her undivided attention, a faint, glinting light in the darkness of the yard pulled her gaze away from Stiles.

“Yeah,” he said, as if he knew what caught her eye. He sounded disgusted. “It’s been like this the entire time I’ve been home. Probably started earlier than that to keep an eye on my dad.” He looked out into the dark and squinted, his mouth twisted in concentration. “It’s Erica,” he said dismissively. “Must have drawn the short straw tonight.” He shouted, “YOU’RE SUCH A CREEP.” No answer was forthcoming from the werewolf outside.

“They’re watching the house?” Though Cora had mentioned it, Lydia hadn’t really believed it.

“Mm-hm.” Stiles took another drag and blew a smoke ring into the night. “And eavesdropping.”

When Stiles had picked up smoking, Lydia wasn’t particularly surprised. The _pack, light, drag_ seemed to help satisfy his nervous energy, seemed to help him focus some. She didn’t _like_ it, but she understood it. And sometimes, she joined him in it. She held out her hand for the cigarette. “Hale Pack or McCall Pack?”

“…Hale Pack,” he answered. His eyes narrowed, studying her, but he gave her the cigarette. “Why?”

“No reason,” was her flippant answer. She flicked the ash from the cigarette’s tip. “Did they tell you what happened to your dad?”

“Tried to,” he said. Shrugging, he added, “Wasn’t really interested in hearing it, ya know? I mean, it shouldn’t matter how mad Derek and Scott are at me, they should tell me when something goes down with my dad. It makes sense that my dad would hide it from me—he doesn’t want me worrying or whatever, wants me to focus on school and not stress out over him—be he’s all I have left, and Derek and Scott know that. Like, if Scotty wasn’t in the know about something happening to his mom, you bet your sweet ass I’d tell him, no matter how much he thought I hated him.” Stiles dropped his head and ran his hand through his hair. “And when the Darach went after Cora? I looked after her. You know she stopped breathing in the back of that ambulance, right? Just—” He made a ‘flat line’ motion with his hand, and it always filled Lydia with dread to hear the story—how Cora had nearly died, how Lydia had nearly lost her. “She’s Derek’s family, all _he_ really had. I just thought family…I thought family was kind of a no-fly zone, ya know? Like, we set shit aside for our families, since we’ve all lost something or have so much to lose.” He swallowed, then concluded bitterly, “Guess I was wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” Lydia said, anger slipping into her voice for his benefit. She took one last drag from the cigarette before tossing it out the window. “It was a shitty thing for them to keep from you. Beyond fucked up. You have every right to be absolutely livid.”

“I came home early,” Stiles said like a confession. “I switched out the ticket you got and came home early to…I don’t even know what. But when I walked in, I found Derek in the living room helping my dad. And, like—” He laughed, all hurt and indignity and self-deprecation. “—and it looked like he _belonged_ there. Some dude I used to fuck looks like he belongs in my living room with my dad. Like, they should just chill on the couch together and watch baseball or—or like he’s a better son or some shit.”

“Stiles,” Lydia said gently.

“I wanted to throw up and I wanted to scream and I wanted to punch Derek in his stupid fucking face. I’ve never—I’ve never been so _so_ goddamn angry. Not when I found out he was fucking Jennifer Blake, not when he disappeared, not even when he suddenly came back and assumed we’d go right back to whatever it was we’d been doing. Whatever it was he and I were. Never. Never more than when I saw him _helping my dad_.”

She rested a hand on his shoulder and eased him away from the window so she could close and lock it. Erica had overheard enough of Stiles’ confession; she had more than enough to report back to Derek. But just to be sure, she gathered the small speaker set and put it on the window sill, letting the music play against the glass where Erica wouldn’t hear their voices over it. Then, she led Stiles back to the bed and guided him to sit.

“It’s so stupid,” he muttered.

“Stiles,” she said again, and when he looked up, his eyes were wet, the beginnings of tears clumping his lashes. “What happened at the Nemeton?”

The smile he gave was watery and a little broken. “He _told_ you? Is that what you were talking about downstairs?”

“No,” Lydia answered. She sat beside him and took his hand, lacing their fingers. He clutched her, but as ashamed as he seemed, it didn’t look like he’d try to hide from her. “I found out from Cora.”

Stiles doubled over to bury his face in his free hand. A soft string of curses fell from his lips between ragged breaths. Lydia just stroked her thumb against his where she held his hand.

“She asked me to dig through your room,” Lydia continued, “to see if I could find anything about why you’d be at the Nemeton, why you’d point a gun at Derek.” When Stiles tried to pull away from her, she held him fast. “And I did,” she went on quickly, rushing the rest of her words. “I went through your room and I found your notes, but I haven’t breathed a word of it to Cora or Derek. _That’s_ what he was asking me about downstairs, and I told him I hadn’t done it, that sometimes people change, that you might not be the person he remembers.” And suddenly she was crying, too, her cheeks wet without her realizing. “But now I’m worried you aren’t the person _I_ remember. Stiles, what is going on? What was all of that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. His lip trembled when he lifted his head to meet her gaze, brows pinched in something like fear, in something like helplessness, like resignation. “I don’t know, Lyds, I swear I don’t. I was out there…doing something, and I don’t remember what. Then Derek was there, and I didn’t want him there, but I had my gun, and I’m just so fucking sick of him thinking he can just…do whatever. That he has any sway over me. So I…I…but I didn’t, I’d never…” Stiles pitched suddenly and pressed his face against Lydia’s shoulder. “I don’t hate him. I don’t. I feel like I’m losing my mind. It didn’t feel like me when I aimed it at him. It’s like…it’s like Void all over again, but it’s just me. It’s just me in my head, which means I really must be losing it.”

“Tell me about the notebooks, Stiles,” Lydia urged. She carded her hand through his hair, pressed a kiss to his temple.

“It’s just research,” he said. “It’s just…notes and—and stuff I found while I was updating the bestiary.”

She didn’t need to hear his heartbeat or scent his chemosignals to know he was dodging. There were journal entries, weaknesses and plights and thoughts he’d never confessed except on the page, spells with their nefarious purposes, illustrations she never knew him to skill to draw. Instead, she sniffled and wiped her face with her free hand. “Did Scott tell you anything about emissaries?”

“Lydia, don’t,” Stiles pleaded.

“So he did?”

“Please, I just—”

“You need to think about it,” she stated. “It might be the key to figuring all this out.”

They didn’t talk much more after that. When they curled up together beneath Stiles’ adolescent sheets, they pretended to sleep despite each knowing the other was awake.

 

###

 

Seven people stood between Lydia and the counter.

The Beacon Coffee House was busy for a Tuesday afternoon, but she and Stiles weren’t the only ones home for winter break, and well, it was the only coffee house that wasn’t a Starbucks. Beside her, Stiles was involved with his cell phone, the familiar chime of Snapchat indicating his conversation was a very active one.

“Lyds! Come here! Say hi to Adam,” Stiles urged, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her unbearably close. He aimed the phone at them from a raised angle and grinned into the camera. “Have fun freezing your ass off!” he teased for the video.

She huffed, but smiled despite herself. “Hi, Adam,” she sing-songed playfully to the phone. Then she made a loud, smacking kiss, lips almost meeting the screen. It pleased Stiles enough to have him full-body laughing before he added a caption. From over his shoulder, she saw ‘Didn’t I tell you she was beautiful?’ as white text in a tinted box.

Stiles laughed again when his phone chimed with what was, presumably, Adam’s response. He quickly took a screen shot of the image before showing Lydia. Covering the entirety of his screen was a man who looked painfully like Derek Hale with warmer, darker eyes and dark-rimmed glasses, even if his jawline, eyebrows, and stubble were similar. He was bundled up in a hat and a scarf, dusted in the white flakes of a fresh snowfall, his goofy, smitten grin clearly for show. His caption read, “Kisses from a beautiful woman. Suck it, Stiles! :P” and in hasty fingertip scrawl at the bottom of the image: “And cross-country, too!”

The line for coffee shrank as they Snap’d Adam and suddenly, it was their turn to order.

Stiles leaned on the counter and considered the menu above the barista’s head for a few moments while Lydia waited beside him. The kid taking his order—because, really, the guy couldn’t have been older than seventeen—watched him, a little slack-jawed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he stared at Stiles’ arched back, the way his shirt hugged his chest, even beneath the hoodie he wore, how his long, nimble fingers tapped the counter. He had callouses on his left hand from pinning nylon strings to a fret board, and she realized how rough his fingertips had become since he started playing.

It occurred to Lydia then, and not for the first time: Stiles was a man.

He straightened and slapped the table amiably, decision made. “I’ll take a medium tiramisu latte with an extra shot and chocolate syrup, please,” he said. The smile he wore for the barista was warm, genuine, and the kid’s cheeks flushed in response—precious. Stiles’ phone when off again as he shimmied out of the way so Lydia could order.

“I’ll have a medium skinny, iced, white—”

“White chocolate mocha, no whip.”

“Jesus, Cora!” Stiles hissed. He hung onto the counter as he whipped around, startled. The hand Lydia extended to help steady him was automatic and expected enough that she could keep her eyes on the werewolf instead of him. “Wear a fucking bell or something. Christ.”

Cora playfully snarled at Stiles and clicked her teeth.

Lydia was wholly unsurprised.

Stiles rolled his eyes, muttering something about ‘wolves’ and ‘creepers.’

The barista rung up the order, and when Cora dropped a few bills on the counter, Lydia didn’t argue.

Cora leaned close, hiding her intention for privacy by ushering Lydia down to the waiting area for their orders. “Can we talk?” she asked, her voice low, her nose nearly pressed against Lydia’s temple.

“Couldn’t you just call or text?” Lydia asked, staring at the menu board to try to appear completely uninterested. Her heart throbbed against her ribs, and she clutched her phone in an effort to dispel the tingling in her fingers. She couldn’t hide how Cora’s proximity affected her, but she wouldn’t give Cora the satisfaction of visibly succumbing to it.

“You were ignoring my texts,” Cora purred. And when they reached the counter where their drinks would appear, she crowded Lydia against its edge.

Stiles watched them skeptically, carefully tracking Lydia’s expression. His mouth pressed into a thin line that jutted his lip ring, his jaw set. It was an expression he only wore when he wielded his baseball bat, or, more recently, when he laid eyes on Derek. Should he intervene? Was Cora’s advance welcome? Even when his phone chimed with what was probably a response from Adam, Stiles didn’t so much as acknowledge his buzzing phone.

Lydia sighed and waved him off. “Go. Find a table and message him back.” Stiles hesitated for a few heavy beats, even going so far as to ignore the announcement and arrival of his drink. But before Lydia had to tell him a second time, he gathered his cup and disappeared in the crowd of patrons.

“Look,” Lydia said to Cora once Stiles was out of earshot, “I already told Derek—”

Cora shook her head, her dark tresses a wave of silk with the movement. “I’m not here because of Derek.”

“Then what?” Through milling customers, Lydia caught Stiles’ weary gaze. He watched her the way someone watches a horror movie, like he knew what was going to happen and knew it would end in screams. She tried to convey something reassuring with her expression, with the tilt of her head, with the twitch of her mouth. If nothing else, she could handle herself.

_This doesn’t have to end badly._

Stiles sighed and busied himself with his phone.

“I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to…see you.” Cora’s hand hovered over the small of her back, werewolf body heat a warm patch against her skin the pressure of touch didn’t follow. Her brown eyes were reserved, guarded, but only slightly. She was a door left ajar, one Lydia could push open or slam shut with the right word.

Before Lydia did either, she looked at Cora. Really _looked_. She traced the outline of her large, expressive eyes, dark like the truffles that were her sweet-tooth weakness, and the sharp lines of her brows; the gentle slope of her nose and the softness of her cheeks; the plump fullness of her mouth, her bottom lip pink as if she worried it with teeth before approaching Lydia. Her hair, dark like stained wood and just as rich, draped over her shoulders and framed her face, longer than Lydia remembered, but looking soft enough to bury her fingers in and _pull_.

Lydia was struck. Despite how they were built to fall apart, they seemed destined to fall back together.

Cora’s tentative voice broke her reverie—“Lydia…?”—but it was Cora’s hand resting on her hip with the familiarity of a lover that spurred her into action. She surged onto her toes to span the height difference between them, moderate as it was, and sealed her mouth over Cora’s, soft and pressing, with her hand on Cora’s jaw to keep the werewolf close.

Not that it was needed. Cora accepted everything Lydia gave, and returned it—every press of lips, every taste, every soft sound.

“I’ll leave my window open,” Lydia said when she pulled away. And while her heart raced, Cora was the one left panting. Lydia collected her coffee and left Cora at the counter to find Stiles.

When she sat across from him at the table, sunlight bleeding across its surface from the window beside them, he snorted into his drink and rolled his eyes. “Good for you,” he mumbled into his cup.

Lydia just smiled.

 

###

 

Her room in the Stilinski house didn’t have sheer curtains. They were of medium fabric, patterned, white with faint pastel birds in flight. They tended to just rustle together instead of flutter or float.

Moving into a new house meant a whole new rhythm, a whole new set of Things To Get Used To—like how the central air sounded when it kicked on, the heavy footfalls of the Sheriff when getting ready for a shift, the stampede of Stiles ascending and descending the stairs, the absence of Prada’s jingling collar and the click of his nails on hardwood. But as significant as all of these Things were, the one thing that took Lydia the longest to get used to was the sound and movement of her new curtains.

It was so silly.

“We can get sheer ones,” Stiles had said when she’d mentioned it in passing. “It wouldn’t be a problem at all.” But the Stilinskis had already been kind enough to take her in, and Lydia—as particular as she could be—wasn’t ungrateful. She didn’t _want_ to be ungrateful. She’d just given Stiles’ hand a squeeze. She’d just been happy to still be in Beacon Hills, to still be home.

Something that didn’t change, however, was Cora climbing through her window.

Cora appeared between one heartbeat and the next, between one resolutely not-longing look at the window and another.

After the incident with…Jason? Jason. Lydia couldn’t bring herself to spend the night with anyone but Stiles. Sometimes she woke up screaming, sometimes she didn’t, but the way Jason had stared at her while she’d been mercilessly bombarded with premonitions overwhelming her senses did something to her. The careful armor she wore, the same armor everyone wore to protect their tender hearts, had been cracked. Another blow and it could shatter. She couldn’t risk it. Not when she was supposed to be moving forward. Not when she was supposed to be getting better.

But she wasn’t. No matter how many people she fucked, none of them compared, none of them could come close to competing, none of them…none of them…

“I _missed_ you,” Cora breathed, and she sounded as raw as Lydia felt. She shrugged out of her leather jacket and tossed it across the back of the desk chair before pouncing.

Lydia fell back against the mattress and bounced on the springs, her light laugh a gasp as Cora pressed against her, nuzzled beneath her jaw, pinned her hips down with her own. What Cora lacked in mass she made up for in density, despite her petite form—petite next to Boyd and Derek and even Isaac—she was a solid mass of supernatural power, as if the lycanthrope blood in her veins made her heavier, somehow. Or maybe Lydia was just so used to orbiting around a Cora-shaped bend in space it was nothing to fall back into that gravity.

She hitched her legs around Cora’s hips and tangled her hand in her soft hair, yanking her down to devour her mouth. A wet slide of lips and tongue punctuated with gasps and heaved breaths. They rocked against each other, hands gripping, clutching, pulling. Cora growled and Lydia laughed. A warm hand slid up Lydia’s shirt and cupped her through the thin material of her bra, her breast squeezed just right, a thumb pressed just so over her nipple. Lydia’s laugh died a moan.

“Fuck, Cora…”

The werewolf hummed, smug, then sat back on her haunches with Lydia’s legs still around her and looked. Amber eyes raked over Lydia body—fully clothed but viciously disheveled, and Lydia imagined herself a picture of debauchery with smeared make up and flushed skin—and like with her physical existence, Cora’s glowing gaze was somehow _heavier_. Her eyes raked over her with a near-tangible touch, something lethal, something desirous, something unhinged and feral; Lydia shivered, a needy sound bubbling up from her core.

Cora’s touch was gentle as she eased Lydia free from her clothes. Her warm mouth caressed every inch of skin as it was revealed, glowing eyes slipping closed while she savored having Lydia again. It had been so long since Lydia experienced anything more than a quick romp, the attention laved upon her with each passing moment had her quivering by the time she was laid bare.

“You,” she whimpered. “Get over here.” She reached for Cora, tried to grab her and grapple her close, but her hands were effortlessly pinned beside her head. A grip like warm, breathing steel held her in place as efficiently as forged shackles. Her hands itched to touch, her mouth watered to taste. She hurtled through _want_ , landing headlong into raw _need_. “Cora,” Lydia begged.

“Just—” the werewolf started. Something behind her liquid-sun gaze shattered, and Lydia could almost see the fault lines forming. “I—Lydia. I want to do this. Please, just, let me do this, okay? I need—” Cora whined, high like a wounded animal, and dipped her head to bury her nose against Lydia’s neck, scorching breath broken with every exhale.

Lydia rocked up against her—denim and cotton rough against her skin—sparks of desire cracking bright and hot wherever they touched, and bared her throat. She swallowed thickly as Cora’s tongue pressed against her fluttering pulse, as she bit hard enough for her vision to swim.

“Lydia—”

“Yes, Cora. God, _yes_.” And she barely got the words out before Cora was kissing her, licking into her mouth and nearly sucking the air from her lungs. Gentle nips and slow caresses left Lydia panting, desperate to breathe, desperate to burn beneath the heat of Cora on her and against her, searing her from the inside out.

After her wrists were released, Lydia made no further attempts at touching the wolf. Instead, she dropped her hands to fist them in the sheets, to clutch them helplessly as reverent kisses and capable hands took her apart piece by piece. Pressure to her hip, the scrape of blunt nails scoring her thigh, a soft suckle at her breast, a bite along her clavicle—Lydia was shuddering through release before Cora had even really touched her.

And when Cora finally did, when Cora finally slipped a hand between her thighs, the rough pads of her fingers sliding slick and smooth against velvet skin, when Cora eased her fingers inside her and bit the trembling flesh of her thigh, Lydia choked on her own wretched pleas for more. And when Cora dragged her damp mouth over where her fingers stroked, when she panted hot before dragged her tongue through the wetness of Lydia’s arousal, Lydia quivered and mewled, murmuring hushed praises until she was sobbing.

“You kept it,” Cora murmured.

The statement roused Lydia from where she dozed draped over her, still naked against the werewolf’s fully-clothed form. Pressed so close, the chilly breeze from the open window hardly raised a shiver across Lydia’s skin. She hummed in question, and lifted her head to see what had caught Cora’s attention.

A corkboard mounted above her nightstand, adorned with colorful pins, served as a means of hanging and displaying bracelets and necklaces. Nearest the bed, where Lydia could easily see as she drifted to sleep, or grab it should she want to wear it, hung the necklace Cora had given her. It was a simple silver wolf howling at a moon that wasn’t there, on a dainty silver chain. On the back of the pendent, an engraved triskele—like the ink between Derek’s shoulder blades, like the ink at the base of Cora’s spine. She imagined Laura had a tattoo as well, though Lydia never asked.

Between the dispersal of the Alpha Pack and Cora’s unexpected departure, Lydia would dare say she almost fell in love. It was a night she couldn’t quite forget, though sometimes she wished she could. The necklace had been a token of affection, something like acceptance, something like a promise. Cora’s necklace hung from Lydia’s neck from the day it was gifted to her to the day she realized Cora wasn’t coming back.

If Cora noticed how her heart hitched, she didn’t mention it.

Lydia gave a soft hum, but hunkered back down on Cora, face nestled against the collar of her shirt with an arm around her abdomen. “Of course I kept it. It’s a nice necklace.”

Beneath her, Cora shifted, stretched, reached for necklace. She thumbed the pendent thoughtfully. “Will you ever wear it again?” she asked, her voice soft.

Lydia remembered when they couldn’t take the heat, when she’d ended things in the silence after Cora had walked out. She’d decided to set Cora free. But with Cora in her arms again, she wondered if the monsters of their past could turn out to be just trees, if maybe it being Lydia’s own stubbornness keeping them apart, keeping them from being happy.

“Maybe,” Lydia said. And her heartbeat was steady.

 

###

 

“Fucking A, Dad!” Stiles shouted, throwing his hands up as he paced the living room.

“You watch your tone, young man,” the Sheriff warned. “I’m still your father.” His face was drawn, tired, his arm still hanging against his chest in a sling, but he was in his uniform and ready to—Lydia didn’t know what. “I didn’t even want to have to tell you about this.”

“I know, and that’s stupid,” Stiles spat.

Bearing witness to a domestic row between the Stilinski men was an awkward affair. Lydia kept her opinions to herself, though both Stiles and the Sheriff glanced to her for validation, as if she could sway one or the other. Right.

To be fair, Stiles _did_ say he wanted to leave the supernatural behind, and the Sheriff _did_ have a responsibility to Beacon Hills—his new understanding only raising the stakes. However, Stiles _was_ better at cryptozoology, and the Sheriff _had_ gotten hurt.

They were both impossibly stubborn.

“Something you don’t understand is killing people, and you didn’t think to tell me. You got hurt, and you didn’t think to tell me. You shut me out, Dad!” Stiles said. “You and Derek and Scott and everyone! You all shut me out!”

“You _wanted_ out, Stiles! You packed your bags and went to New York and—”

“Dad, that’s not—”

“—and we made do,” the Sheriff continued, bulldozing over Stiles’ arguments.

“I helped with the harpies! I helped with the naiad! I’m not out of it! Not by a long shot.”

But it was as if the Sheriff didn’t hear him. “If you don’t want this to be your fight anymore, that’s fine. And if we could handle it on our own, we would. But we’re out of options. Not even Scott’s boss has been much use.”

“Dad,” Stiles pleaded, “it’s always gonna be my fight as long as you’re fighting it.”

Lydia lowered her head to stare at her shoes, arms crossed over her chest. She chewed her bottom lip as the silence stretched between them.

The Sheriff sighed. “Take a look at files and cross it against your—your bestiary.” He rested his hand on his side-arm and nodded to the stacks of paperwork covering the coffee table. Files and reports and photographs from the last several weeks—they’d been hunting this thing for _weeks_ and no one breathed a word of it to Stiles or Lydia. “Call me if you find anything.”

“What about Derek and Scott?”

“They’re out trying to pick up a scent. Despite the reports of big, black wolf, they’re pretty sure it’s not another werewolf. Though a—a shifter is a possibility, apparently. The full moon is coming, so it’s definitely something to contain.”

“What will you be doing, Sheriff?” Lydia ventured to ask. It was the first she’d spoken up since the discussion-turned-argument began.

“I’m going to meet Parrish at the scene.” He shifted his weight and put on his best ‘stern father’ face. “You and Stiles need to stay here and research the hell out of this thing. We’ve got nothing but a string of behaviors and patterns that Hale’s never seen or heard of before.”

“Derek isn’t the end-all, be-all, Dad,” Stiles grumbled.

“Still, he’s the best we’ve had since you left for college.” Making his way to the door, the Sheriff said, “Get to work, guys.”

“Yes, sir,” Lydia murmured, and Stiles only grunted his assent.

When the door closed behind his father, Stiles roared and raked his hands across the coffee table. Papers flew then fluttered to the floor like the New York snowfall they avoided in Beacon Hills. Pens shot across the room and clattered against the wall, against the entertainment center. But to Lydia, pens and papers were no different than the black and white pieces of Go. To Lydia, Stiles’ frustration was no different than his rage.

She’d been yards away, with Scott at her side, watching helplessly as Stiles faced the Nogitsune. Their shouts, useless against whatever focus or concentration or spell that tied Stiles to the demon. But then Scott howled, a roar Lydia felt in her very bones, and Stiles had looked. Stiles _saw them_ —and he fought back.

Lydia didn’t think Stiles saw her now. She flinched.

Heaving gulps of air, Stiles crumpled onto the couch, long limbs outstretched. He stared up at the ceiling and teetered on the verge of tears until he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck fuck FUCK.” He kicked the coffee table, sliding it across the room and hitting the entertainment center. The TV rocked precariously.

“Come on, Stiles,” Lydia said softly. She delicately avoided stepping on the pages littering the floor as she gathered them. Without heed to their order, she tapped them into neat piles on the askew coffee table. “We have work to do.”

Stiles ignored her. Instead, he glared at nothing, hand absently touching his face. His silence stretched so long that Lydia busied herself sifting through the paperwork and sorting it into piles: photographs, reports, notes. The Sheriff’s neat script covered much of it, meaning they had copies and not the originals. Just as good—Stiles was a note-taker too, and he could write all over these until he pieced together what the hell—

“Do you still have your gun upstairs?” he asked suddenly.

Lydia looked up sharply from a particularly gruesome photograph of a gutted child. A little girl, no older than five, her organs strewed across the ground in a careless dissection.

“Is your gun upstairs in your safe?” he repeated slowly. Lydia would have thought he was being sarcastic if it weren’t for the sharpness of his gaze and the determined set of his jaw. He was measuring something, calculating.

“Yeah,” she said. “I haven’t touched it since before we moved.”

“Go get it,” Stiles said, hunching forward on the couch. His attention skated across the paperwork Lydia had recollected. He absently touched the photograph of the girl, the one Lydia had been studying when he first spoke, with a tentative hand. “Clean it, check it. Everything. Make sure it won’t jam.”

“Stiles,” she said carefully, gesturing to the reports between them, “do you know what this thing is?”

“I’ll have an answer by the time you come back with your weapon.”

Despite the fading dye in his hair, despite the ring in his lip he tongued absently, despite the way he reached for the cigarettes he shouldn’t be smoking in the house, there was a shadow of something unfathomable about him. Between one moment and the next, Stiles transformed from an angry, hurt, young man to this…this dangerously steady professional. She could almost see the workings of his mind behind the quick twitch and calculation of his eyes.

He looked like he was a thousand years old and nothing could kill him.

He broached no argument. Stiles lit his cigarette and picked up a red Sharpie marker from where it had fallen off the table, his deft hand smoothly marking photographs and rough paper.

“I’ll be right back,” she said unnecessarily. She pushed herself up from where she knelt by the coffee table and hurried upstairs. Derek was right—Stiles was erratic; and it took being alone with him in an empty house to realize how utterly terrifying it was.

For her eighteenth birthday, the Sheriff had given her a handgun, a concealed shoulder holster, a course on gun safety, and a certification for a concealed weapon. She knelt beside her bed and opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand.

_“You’re an adult now, Lydia, but even if you were my daughter, I know I couldn’t stop you from getting tangled up in all this…supernatural nonsense.” A warm hand on her cheek. A kiss to her forehead. “I just want you kids safe. So…stay safe, okay?”_

_“Sure thing, Sheriff.”_

Beneath pens and business cards, notes and loose make up, the lockbox that held her weapon was buried. She ran her hand over it the lid once she pulled it out, reverent and a little scared. She’d passed the course with the highest marks, and Allison had been so proud when she’d told her about her marksmanship scores. They planned to go to the range together when she finally visited from France.

Nestled amongst car keys and apartment keys and house keys and Stiles’ spare key to his Jeep, the small padlock key for her gun safe was unassuming. And the weapon it revealed was just as unassuming. A small, black handgun, easily hidden beneath even her clothes with the holster the Sheriff had gotten her. It fit comfortably in her hand, enough that the extra force in the recoil was a worthwhile condition.

Lydia was a few months older than Stiles, but once she had her handgun, once she’d taken her courses, once she could legally carry her concealed weapon in the state of California, the Sheriff sat both she and Stiles down and taught them to field strip and clean their guns. The Sheriff had gotten one for Stiles, too, though his was a bit bigger and better suited for his hand. Even if Stiles wasn’t legally allowed to carry it yet, he walked them through proper gun care, how to take the weapon apart, how to troubleshoot malfunctions, how to put it back together. He took them to the range and let them practice their aim, smiling proudly when they tore neat holes through the targets.

It became a competition between her and Stiles, of course. Stiles had better aim, but Lydia was faster at stripping and cleaning. Stiles took his course and got his certification the weekend after his birthday—he missed Lydia’s scores by a meager two points. Allison sent them a few custom boxes of wolfsbane bullets as joint congratulations.

Kneeling beside her bed with the lockbox set aside, Lydia stripped her weapon and cleaned it. The metal was heavy and vaguely unfamiliar in her hand, but as she disassembled it to scrub and oil every piece in need, the muscle memory from the Sheriff’s drills guided her fingers to deftness. As she loaded two of her four clips with Allison’s wolfsbane bullets, she wondered if Stiles remembered how quickly she could strip and clean a gun. And if he did, she wondered why he’d sent her away.

She reached beneath her bed and pull out the shoulder holster. She slid it on, and pulled a jacket on over it. Before slipping it into its place beneath her arm, Lydia clicked the safety off and cocked the weapon. It didn’t matter what Stiles’ reasoning was. She trusted him. She wasn’t afraid of him, and she wasn’t afraid of whatever her friends, her pack, were out hunting.

“It’s an aswang,” Stiles said when Lydia returned to the living room. He was still sitting on the couch, but leaned back, waiting for her. He showed her the screen of his cell phone where—why hadn’t she thought of that?—he had the bestiary entry for the creature.

Taking the phone, Lydia scrolled through the information, wincing every so often from the graphic description of the creature’s behavior: stealing unborn children from the wombs of expectant mothers, eating corpses, eating the hearts and livers of young children, creating doppelgängers of kidnapped people who just get sick and die. The illustrations, rough sketches, of the creature were... One depicted a woman whose body had been severed in half, pelvis and below missing, with enormous bat wings springing from her back. Another showed a woman whose arms and legs bent at unnatural angles, warped and twisted like a spider’s, body bent and belly fat with spinneret-like appendages. In all the images, the eyes were glossed or cataract-cloudy, soulless and vacant. How does something like that even biologically survive? Lydia shook her head and returned the phone to Stiles. “You went through the paperwork and figured it out in the ten minutes I was gone?”

“No,” Stiles said, shoving his phone into his pocket. He pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it. Beside him was a Solo cup with water where discarded cigarette butts floated.  “I figured it out a while ago—these reports just sealed it for me. And you were gone for twenty minutes, not ten.”

Lydia must have looked incredulous, because Stiles continued, “When I came home and saw that my dad had been hurt, you really think I just holed myself up in my room and gave everyone the silent treatment?” He scoffed. “Werewolves are hard to fool, but it’s not impossible, and Erica and Boyd never wanted to keep watch on me anyway. Besides, I’ve been eavesdropping on my dad’s calls and breaking into his office for years. These, though—” He tapped the information on the coffee table. “—these, his notes and Derek’s contributions, he had hidden away. Never saw them until tonight. He seriously wanted to keep this from me. But the mysterious animal attacks? The victim demographics? The big black wolf? God, it was almost too easy to figure out. I just couldn’t be sure, not without knowing the sound it made. Christ.” Pushing himself from the couch, he pulled his own weapon from where he’d had it hidden against his ribs. He went through the same motions Lydia had in her room—checking the mechanisms of the weapon to ensure proper function.

“Stiles, your dad said to contact him when we found anything,” Lydia argued. It was weak. It wouldn’t sway him, but she had to say it anyway.

“My dad is also in a sling and keeping secrets from me.” He cocked the weapon and looked to her expectantly. “Are you in?”

She sighed. “You know I am.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

 

###

 

They climbed into the Jeep and Stiles gunned it towards the preserve.

“Every vic lived in the neighborhoods lining the woods,” Stiles explained as he drove. He gestured with his hand as he talked unless he was shifting gears. “And every vic was found either deep in the woods, or just outside their property lines. These things aren’t local hunters. They travel for miles and miles from their homes to feed, so we have to find it now, at night, before it kills someone else. It might not stay in Beacon Hills, and if it leaves our territory, we lose our shot at taking it out.”

 Lydia nodded, grabbed Stiles’ phone and scrolled through the information on the aswang.

They were silent for a long time, driving through the woods, before Stiles said, “Text the pack. Tell Derek and Scott what we’re hunting—” He didn’t have to continue; she was already doing it before he’d even mentioned it, but he continued anyway, “—tell them we’re in the woods. Let them know—HOLY SHIT.”

Stiles hit the brakes too soon, slammed them hard. The Jeep skidded and slid through dead leaves and light muck, but he somehow managed to maintain control with one hand on the wheel. The other had shot out to stop Lydia from jerking forward too violently. The seatbelt still dug into her shoulder, her chest, and she’d probably have bruises there the next day, but she didn’t come anywhere close to hitting the dashboard. Stiles’ reflexes made sure of that.

At the same time, something darted through the bright beams of the Jeep’s headlights. Something quadruped that moved in unnatural jerks and was too fast for the way it locomoted. Something that looked like a woman with stretched, greying skin like a purpose. Something that shrieked, its face opening up with the unhinging of its jaw, baring needle-like fangs and a forked tongue, before dashing off into the darkness.

“That was it!” he said a split second later. “Shit shit. Fuck. That was it.” And Stiles scrambled free through the driver’s door and to the back of the Jeep. “Lydia, come on!”

She stayed in the passenger seat, wide eyes staring forward and hardly able to register Stiles’ urging. She clutched his phone in her shaking hand, and whether the adrenaline rushing through her veins was from nearly hitting the thing, or seeing the thing they nearly hit, she wasn’t sure. She jumped when Stiles yanked her door open.

“Lydia,” he said, and his expression shifted quickly from irritation to concern. He cupped her jaw. She closed her eyes and shuddered. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“You have your gun, right?”

She nodded a little too emphatically.

“Good. I have mine, too. We kill this thing by decapitating it.” He held a sheathed machete in one hand, and extended the other hand to her. When she looked, a strap crossed his chest, and the handle of a second machete peeked over his shoulder. “Did you text Derek and Scott?”

She nodded again, taking his hand to help her out of the Jeep. Lydia snatched the machete from Stiles and ducked into its strap, securing it tightly against her chest. It ached where the seatbelt had dug into her, but it was a minor discomfort. She checked his phone, which she still held, and saw the single letter acknowledgement that her message had been received.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Stiles asked again. “You can stay here, if you want.”

“Fuck you, Stilinski.” She tried to snarl, but with how her voice shook, it lacked bite. “You’re not taking that thing on alone.”

He smirked. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He squeezed her hand, then turned, his form fading from sight as he walked off into the woods. “Come on. We can’t let it get far.”

Lydia hurried to follow him.

Stiles led the way with a pocket flashlight. He held it propped against his drawn weapon, finger resting against the length of the barrel instead of the trigger. They’d contacted the pack, and he took precautions not to gun down an ally. Lydia, however, continued studying the information on the creature between frantic scans of their surroundings. They navigated the woods as quickly and as quietly as they could.

_Tik-tik._

Stiles stopped, leaves shuffling about his feet. Lydia froze a few feet behind him.

_Tik-tik._

“It’s close,” Stiles said.

“But it sounds yards away, at least,” Lydia argued. She gestured vaguely to their left while she consulted the bestiary again. “Over there.”

Shaking his head, Stiles said, “It can change how its sound—”

“—is processed by the ear. Ignorance of its distance leaves its prey confused and vulnerable,” Lydia read. “But we don’t fit its demographic. We shouldn’t be prey.”

“It won’t eat us,” Stiles said, his accompanying laugh mirthless. “It’ll just kill us.”

Perfect.

_Tik-tik._

A shadow dashed in the darkness to their right, and Stiles threw himself into the chase. Lydia followed half a second later, but Stiles’ legs were longer than hers, stronger from playing lacrosse and running with wolves. Through the trees, Lydia tracked Stiles’ movement by the light of his flashlight. He gained on the creature, inadvertently leaving Lydia behind.

And then she lost him completely. She slowed to a stop, bewildered and disoriented, and fear crept up her spine. Everything looked the same in every direction—trees, their shadows, a light fog rolling atop dead leaves. The night was silent. Not even crickets chirped.

“Stiles?”

Something rustled nearby. Lydia withdrew her gun.

“Lydia!”

“Stiles!”

He sounded faint, far away. But he couldn’t have covered that much distance so quickly. She followed the sound of his voice, her steps careful as she steadily pointed her gun ahead of her. Her hands trembled, but she clutched the weapon to still them. She called again, and his answer sounded even further away than the first.

Then she found his flashlight, its beam lighting her boots as she approached it. The moment her fingertips brushed metal, she fell to her knees in the dirt, crushed beneath the weight of snarls and screams and blood, each image, feeling, scent too powerful to parse from the rest, too overwhelming for her to do much more than sob with the onslaught. But she did hear her name. It was her name, her _name_ hurt the worst.

_Lydia!_

Stiles, calling for her. Stiles, telling her to run. Stiles, apologizing.

Like they ever stood a chance. 

They fucked up. They fucked up so bad.

Lydia screamed.

When the sobs came, Lydia choked them down, swallowed and forced herself to breathe. She had visions of people dying, and their intervention had averted it. The harpies. The naiad. She wasn’t necessarily a harbinger of death, and it meant that Stiles still had a chance. Lydia launched herself to her feet, her knees trembling beneath her. She picked up the flashlight and ran towards the sound of Stiles’ voice.

She found him standing in small clearing, gnarled roots of the surrounding trees arching up through the earth like angry ocean waves. The aswang held itself ominously from a tree above him, swaying and ready to pounce, but his eyes were trained to it. His gun was aimed, leveled, ready to fire, but the creature’s movements were erratic, impossible to predict.

“Stiles!”

“Lydia, get out of here! Find Scott! Find Derek!”

The aswang sprung.

Stiles pulled the trigger.

Was that it? Were they out of the woods yet?

The bullet tore through a cloud of mist instead of a body. What fell stiffly was a large chunk of drift wood that landed on the forest floor with a dull thud.

“What the fuck?” Stiles said, carefully approaching the wood. He kicked it with the toe of his shoe. An animated doppelgänger of itself. The bestiary had entries for human doppelgängers used to fool families and generate corpses—nothing about this.

_Tik-tik._

“I thought it could only—” Stiles’ words abruptly halted when he was struck from the side, a mass the size of a small horse knocking him to the ground. The air left his lungs in a heavy whoosh, leaving him stunned limp beneath the aswang.

Several things happened at once.

Its grey skin stretched tight over the humanoid aspects of its body—the part that looked like what should have been a beautiful young woman—slick and smooth like the beginnings of decay. But the rest of it, the spider-like, elongated bent limbs was covered in thick fur, black as tar. Even as it hissed over Stiles’—who was regaining his senses—it shifted. Its face stretched into a canid snout, jaws unhinging like a snake’s. Fangs dropped, coated in what could have been saliva, what could have been venom, and its forked tongue scented the air in front of Stiles’ face. Bones ground together and popped, the ridges of the aswang’s back pulling its skin tight over juts of spine, and that’s when it stood.

It was a nightmare, this creature—something out of a Lovecraftian horror story sans tentacles—suddenly bipedal and balanced and wholly impossible.

Stiles tried to scramble away, but couldn’t get purchase on the cold, slippery ground beneath him. The aswang shot its hook-clawed hand to Stiles’ throat and something of a whip-crack echoed in the night. Its grip tightened, and when it lifted Stiles clear off the ground, a soft, broken whimper wretched itself from his lungs.

He clung to what functioned as a wrist, tried to hold himself up by his arms instead of letting his weight hang from his neck. He kicked and scrabbled and fought, but the aswang just brought him close, dripping fangs mere inches from the terror reflected in Stiles’ reddening face.

Bourbon eyes flashed to where Lydia stood ignored for the time being while the aswang had Stiles in its grasp. Its claws dug into the tender flesh of his throat, blood running down his neck to stain the collar of his shirt and hoodie.

She thought he’d say her name.

She thought he’d tell her to run.

She thought he’d apologize.

She thought she’d see him die.

Instead, he mouthed, _Ready?_

The weight of the gun in her hand registered faintly, and she adjusted her grip on the weapon. She gave a faint nod.

Several things happened at once.

Stiles’ apparently hadn’t lost his weapon in his initial tussle on the ground with the aswang. Apparently, he’d only stowed it away back in his holster, though Lydia could never recall witnessing him do it. So once Lydia was ready, as he’d asked, he let go of the aswang’s wrist with one hand and yanked his gun out from beneath his stained and torn jacket. He pressed the barrel against the general vicinity of where a heart should beat and fired.

The aswang screeched.

Its echo blasted through in the night.

Stiles kept firing. Over and over, the impact of each bullet jostled the creature holding him. He struggled to support his weight with one shaking arm, fought hard to keep his body steady in relation to the beast’s thrashing, protecting his delicate human neck as best he could. His free hand continued firing his weapon. Each explosive blast tore through the beast, through the previous silence, tore through Lydia’s situational awareness until a weak clicking followed. His clip was empty, but the creature remained standing.

Until it wavered, unsteady and almost drunk, its scream a bubbling cough. Its second hook-clawed hand slashed at Stiles’ arm, throwing it back and away, and the empty gun disappeared in the dark. Stiles groaned with the effort of keeping his body steady, of not letting the force of the slash snap his own neck. Then it dropped him.

A werewolf howled in the distance.

Thank God.

Stiles crumpled to the ground and landed awkwardly on his shoulder, a brutal snap almost as loud to Lydia as the previous gunfire. He whimpered and curled around his new injury.

“Stiles!”

Several things happened at once.

The aswang lurched to all-fours and loped into the darkness, away from Stiles, away from Lydia, away from the prey that pumped it full of wolfsbane. But Lydia wouldn’t let it go. Stiles might live, but the thing that hurt him wouldn’t be left to the same fate.

They weren’t in the clear yet.

Lydia fired. She fired and fired and fired and advanced on the creature as it slowed down—death in high heels. She caught up to it easily despite its head start, and continued shooting until her gun clicked empty. But she efficiently discharged the empty clip and loaded another from her pocket. She slammed it in place, cocked the weapon, and resumed firing. Another ten shots of wolfsbane, ten bullets ripping through its already bleeding and torn flesh, and her gun was empty for a second time. The aswang collapsed in a pool of its own sickly dark blood, desperately attempting to heave itself onto weak and trembling legs, panicked in its attempt to escape. They were now several yards away from were Stiles still lay wounded.

When she loomed over the maimed creature, a quiet, seething rage enveloped her with its heat. This thing—this thing killed children. This thing hurt the Sheriff. This thing nearly killed Stiles. This thing…this thing… Lydia yanked the machete free from where it was strapped to her back. It lashed out and raked its claws against her shin. She hardly felt it. Rearing back to wield the blade like a baseball bat, Lydia swung for the thing’s throat.

Stiles said decapitation would kill it, but Stiles never mentioned how difficult it would be to decapitate it.

The slice wasn’t clean. The machete might have been new and sharp, but supernatural flesh and bone and muscle proved a difficult medium. She was left to hack, to swing the machete over and over, and with each swing she screamed. She screamed and she cried and she raved, her faced wet with her tears, wet with aswang blood, wet with sweat from the exertion. She continued hacking long after the thing had stopped moving, long after she’d managed to sever head from shoulders. She slashed and chopped, screaming, crying, cursing. She felt to her knees in the gore and moist earth and didn’t stop.

It wasn’t until a supernatural grip wrapped around her hand and halted her next swing that Lydia returned to herself. She pushed against what restrained her, fought the arm wrapping around her chest and the warmth of the body pressed against her back. She fought for all of a few seconds before her hand fell away from the machete’s handle and she collapsed back against whoever held her. She cried.

Cora tossed the machete aside to wrap herself completely around Lydia’s trembling form. She ran her hands along Lydia’s arms, shushed her, and rocked her. She tucked her head beneath her chin while she cried. “It’s okay,” Cora said. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over. It’s over.”

“S-Stiles,” Lydia stammered. “Where’s…?”

“Derek’s with him,” Cora said. “He’s fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited as much as I could, but I also wanted to post it as soon as possible--I'm always so excited to get the next installment up. Please feel free to mention any typos, as I may have missed a few.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	5. Track 5: All You Had to Do Was Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is forced to face the reality of his situation, and make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artwork by the amazing [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/). It was made completely independently of my fic, but it was just so perfect, I asked for permission to include it--to which the answer was yes. :)

(art by [softlycanthropy](http://softlycanthropy.tumblr.com/))

 

 

Things were fuzzy after the aswang dropped him.

Stiles landed hard on his shoulder, bone scraped against bone, and a resounding crack reverberated through every fiber of his being. Distantly, he knew his neck and chest were wet and sticky, something warm was cooling tacky on him. Copper and heavy—he was bleeding. His limbs trembled and he felt cold, down his marrow. He rolled onto his back and watched his rapid breath fog in front of his face. The adrenaline of fear and survival numbed him to it, to what he knew, distantly and in a third-person sort of way, would have him writhing once it all wore off. But as it was, he was pleasantly numb from below the left side of his jaw, down the length of his arm, all the way to the tips of his fingers.

Stiles’ vision wavered, zoomed in and out of focus as he tried to count stars, and he felt light and a little queasy if he counted them too fast. His ears rang, a high pitch filling his head with cotton and dimming his thoughts. Lydia was nearby, he knew. He’d seen her, asked if she was ready before he pumped the aswang full of wolfsbane. It was poisonous regardless of the species, so even if it wasn’t as effective against an aswang as against a werewolf, it would still slow it down. Slow it down and weaken it long enough for Lydia to finish it off with more wolfsbane, or for the cavalry to arrive. He heard a howl— _Derek_ —and smiled faintly. Either way, it was okay for Stiles to relax. So when darkness crept from the corners of his sight to swallow him whole, he didn’t fight it.

But shock is a funny thing, because as accepting as Stiles was about losing consciousness, he didn’t.

“Stiles? Stiles!” Garbled and warped as it was, whatever incarnation it took, Stiles recognized Derek’s voice. If Scott was with him, Stiles couldn’t tell. If anyone was with him, Stiles couldn’t tell. And whether it was shock or selective attention, Derek was all Stiles heard.

Something hit the ground hard beside him—the thump echoed in his head the way club bass echoed in his chest—and warm hands cupped his jaw on one side and smacked his cheek on the other. It was unpleasant and jarring. Stiles tried to swat the offending touch away, but something was lost in translation between his brain and his arm. So he groaned instead, pinched his face, and tried to blink back the shadows obscuring his vision. Soft cloth pressed against the side of his neck, and his pulse fluttered against the applied pressure.

“Stiles, can you hear me?” The words were a little slurred, because Derek talked around his fangs. There was a click in his voice when he swallowed and tried again, clearer this time, “Stiles?”

Stiles threw him a bone and hummed. He blinked in rapid succession, and when his vision focused, Derek was leaning over him, thick eyebrows pinched, eyes pools of something raw and feral—like he was on the verge of murder or breaking down into tears. Stiles’ mouth was dry and sticky, and he worked his tongue through the bitter taste in an effort to speak. When it didn’t work, he swallowed. Derek shifted his weight beside him, cataloguing his injuries. Something constrained Stiles’ Adam’s apple, made his throat work twice as hard to wet his mouth, but he managed. “Lydia?” he asked. “Where’s—?”

“She’s fine,” Derek said. “Cora’s with her.”

Stiles hummed again and sighed, tight and painful. “The aswang?”

“Dead,” Derek answered. “Lydia killed it.”

With a smirk, Stiles said, “Good for her.”

“Stiles, we have to get you to a hospital. You’re—” He stopped, huffed a breath. “Can you move your right arm?”

Stiles made a groggy sound of displeasure and rolled his head for visual confirmation of the limb. He was pleased to find it still intact and attached, though feeling was muted. _Shock, right._ But he wiggled his fingers, and when he concentrated enough, he successfully lifted it off the ground.

“Good,” Derek said, and how he kept his voice light was audibly forced. How bad were his injuries, anyway? He took Stiles’ wrist, his hand warm against the delicate human joint, and guided Stiles’ fingers to curl around his neck. Stiles’ brushed the soft fabric of—oh, Derek was shirtless and Stiles finally noticed. It must be Derek’s shirt against his throat. _Huh._ “Hold this here, okay? Put as much pressure as you can without choking yourself.”

But Stiles suddenly felt much much worse for wear. There was a general pounding at the base of his skull, a pain that spread down the length of his spine and up into his brain with the stinging burn of alcohol on an open wound. He whimpered, and his stomach twisted. They were strange, foreign agonies, but the bile burning its ascent up his esophagus was familiar and well-loathed. Stiles threw everything he had into turning away from Derek. The shirt fell away from his throat so he could support himself with his one useful hand, and he heaved. He heaved and heaved and gagged and heaved and what came out of his mouth was something viscous and sickly sweet and completely _completely_ terrifying to see puddled beneath him. It looked like cancer. He was throwing up cancer.

_“Holy God, what the hell is that?”_

_“It’s my body…it’s trying to heal itself.”_

_“Well, it’s not doing a very good job of it.”_

“Derek…” he croaked. All at once, everything suddenly hurt and he threw up black goop and his chest tightened and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe. “Derek...!” Strong arms wrapped around him just as his trembling arm threatened to buckle. Derek eased him away from the mess, eased him onto his right side, and Stiles still couldn’t get air. He clutched Derek’s wrist hard enough to bruise anyone else, but Derek could take it. Derek could always take it, and always did. He was a powerful alpha werewolf. He was—

He was keeping his expression measurably blank, despite how his eyes were sincere and focused entirely on Stiles. Derek’s control was terrifying, because Stiles knew what it meant. _Shit._ Derek pressed the shirt against Stiles’ bleeding neck again. “Stiles, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“I can’t—Derek. Derek, I—”

“Stop,” Derek said, voice firmer now. “I know. Stiles, I know, okay? Here.” He pried Stiles’ hand off and pressed his palm flat against his bare chest. He was fire to Stiles’ icy touch, Stiles’ fingers prickling with a lack of oxygen or blood or terror but burning against Derek’s skin. Derek took a deep breath, rib cage expanding beneath Stiles’ hand. “Feel that?” he asked. When Stiles nodded, he said, “Match me,” and took another deep breath.

Wait, was he really having a panic attack after going into shock? Was he still in shock?

“Stiles, breathe,” Derek ordered. He kept his hand on Stiles’ wrist, kept Stiles’ hand on his chest. With his free hand, he put gentle pressure on whatever wounds kept seeping blood. As he filled his lungs with air, Derek mouthed numbers—“One, two, three four,”—and whispered them on the exhale—“One, two, three, four.”

If Derek was counting arbitrary beats, not seconds, the exercise wasn’t helping. If Derek was counting seconds, the exercise was ominous. Stiles smelled dirt and earth and the moisture hanging in the air. He smelled Derek’s cologne in the shirt soaking up his blood. Air was clearly entering his body, but he couldn’t keep it there, couldn’t get the oxygen he needed. After going through the cycle several times, for what Stiles imagined were several minutes—but could just as easily have been several _seconds_ —his breathing didn’t regulate. He couldn’t match Derek. It should have flooded him with another wave of panic, should have spiked his fear, but it didn’t.

Instead, through rapid little gasps, Stiles said, “Not working, Der.”

Derek’s clenched his jaw, and helplessness cracked his calm demeanor. “Don’t say that,” he hissed. “Just follow how—”           

“I s-said it’s not—not working,” Stiles growled, then he turned his face to press his cheek against the cool ground, frosty and tacky against his skin. “This isn’t—a, a panic—panic attack.”

He didn’t argue, but from where he held Stiles’ wrist, Derek’s veins grew black as the tar Stiles vomited. Iridescent eyes glowed alpha red with whatever Derek absorbed. Stiles’ throbbing shoulder dulled a little, and the agony arcing through the channels of his nervous system quieted. Despite this, Stiles breath still came quick and shallow, and his focus was slipping. He imagined himself a fish out of water, and dying just as slowly.

“Hospital,” Derek said. “Now.” He eased Stiles’ hand away from his chest and leaned forward to tie his shirt around Stiles’ neck, careful not to impede his already labored breathing. Then he hooked his arms beneath Stiles’ back and knees and hefted him off the ground. It might have been a struggle for anyone else to dead-lift Stiles’ weight, but not Derek fucking Hale, alpha werewolf. Despite the obvious care Derek exercised, the slightest movement jostled Stiles’ shoulder, and he groaned, his world shrunken down to fresh waves of agony.

Derek said something to someone. Derek barked a few sharp orders. Stiles thought he heard Lydia crying, but Derek had assured him she was fine, she was with Cora. Derek started running through the woods, the muscles of his arms saving Stiles the impact of his footfalls.

Stiles’ uninjured shoulder was pinned against Derek’s chest, further limiting his movement. But he couldn’t go to a hospital. Through the pain, his muddled thoughts, his constricted lungs, Stiles knew, intrinsically, the way he knew his mother loved him, the way he knew Scott would be his best friend for life, the way he knew Derek was—No, no thinking that while Derek was whisking him away—but Stiles just _knew_ a hospital would be useless. It wouldn’t save him. He lifted his good arm, wiggled it free from between his and Derek’s ribs, and reached for the only part of Derek he could plausibly reach and get his attention: his face. Stiles cupped Derek’s cheek, ran his thumb along Derek’s jaw.

It worked. Of course it worked.

“Stiles?” he asked, his breath heavy with exertion, with fear driving him faster. He leaned into Stiles’ hand, though Stiles didn’t believe he meant it.

“No hospital,” Stiles panted. “Please.”

“Stiles, you’re…I can’t just—” Derek gritted his teeth and frowned, like he did when he felt cornered. It was an expression Stiles had only been on the receiving end of within the last year or so, since Stiles lashed out. Derek kept running. “Do you want the Bite?” he demanded. “Because that’s all I can offer besides the hospital. You’re bleeding and you’re—you’re _sick_ and—Stiles, I’m not letting you die.”

It was the aswang. Something…something not listed in the bestiary. Something he couldn’t have anticipated. Poison, or bacteria, or venom. Something from the aswang making him sick, making him puke cancer.

“My Jeep,” Stiles managed. “There’s—in the back—I brought—” But he couldn’t finish the thought. His ribs were collapsing, his heart battering itself against the shrinking cage, alight with the effort and burning a hole through the center of Stiles’ chest. Instead of trying, he just scratched his blunt fingernails through Derek’s scruff and hoped he somehow conveyed his plea.

It was such a familiar sensation, such an easy touch, and Stiles stared at how his fingers looked against Derek’s face until he wasn’t.

“Stiles. Stiles!”

Stiles startled, his muscles abruptly locking as the bones of his shoulder ground together. He let out a strangled whimper and tears pricked his eyes. Derek eased a gentle hand over the protruding bone and the pain ebbed. He was on the ground, he realized, and must have just been placed there if Derek’s hovering was any indication. Had he fainted?

“Stiles, what do we need? What will fix this?”

But as soon as the pain in his shoulder faded to bearable levels, Stiles’ stomach roiled and he threw up again. Bitter black mucus filled his mouth faster than he could spit it out. He swallowed some, only to gag and heave it back up. It slopped onto his shirt, sticking the cloth wetly to his skin, but Derek quickly helped him onto his side before he choked.

He took a gasping breath, but the air filling his lungs was uselessly thin. “Help me up,” he said, and he weakly scrabbled at the ground for purchase.

Derek took Stiles by the waist and bore his weight until he was standing. Stiles pitched, unsteady as his vision grey-scaled. The ground was sinking, lurching putty he couldn’t navigate. His feet were too heavy, his legs too stiff. Thankfully, Derek pressed close with indomitable strength and strapped Stiles to reality despite how Stiles couldn’t process it.

Together, they leaned into the back of the Jeep, and Stiles fumbled weakly with his good hand for the duffle bag he’d stowed away. Derek dragged it within reach and tore the zipper open. Inside, jars and bottles rattled together beneath Derek’s rough treatment, but everything Stiles needed was there. He jerked away suddenly as his stomach tightened again. Hanging over Derek’s arm around his waist, he spewed more black slime onto the dirt, hyperventilating and coughing in equal measure.

“Derek,” Stiles groaned once his airway was clear. He didn’t want to go out like this, weak and disoriented and without a shred of dignity. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t _fucking see straight_. He teetered precariously on the knife edge of panic, and there was so much…there were so many regrets and burned bridges and was this longing real or just because he thought he was going to die? _Fuck._ He needed…he had to…

“Derek, DerekDerekDerek.”

“I’m here. I’m right here.” The werewolf’s gentle rumble somehow softened his fear.

When Stiles straightened, Derek was flush against his side, a mass of muscle to brace him, to keep him from crumbling. The wolf pressed his nose against Stiles’ temple, breathed deep and released a trembling exhale. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I need—need both my h-hands.”

“You want me to—”

“Yeah.”

Derek didn’t need to be told twice. He guided Stiles to lean his weight against the edge of the Jeep, and helped wrap his good hand around the vehicle’s frame for stability. One of Derek’s hands, warm and solid and so familiar, ran across the breadth of his shoulders, across his back to finally settle flat against the dislocation. The other, he ran up from Stiles’ wrist to grip him just above the elbow. “It’ll hurt,” Derek said.

Stiles nodded.

“On three.”

Stiles clenched his jaw, shut his eyes.

“One, two—”

And Derek yanked, _hard_ , while still absorbing the pain through shadowed veins. Stiles yelped, and the bone popped back into place with a snap. Derek’s massaged the strained muscles, easing the tension and numbing the nerves, but Stiles stilled whimpered with every futile breath. “You’re okay,” Derek soothed.

Stiles nodded and tentatively rotated his previously dislocated shoulder. It ached, deep and thorough, but he could move it. He flexed his hand to find minimal tingling in his fingers. “Thanks,” he managed. He turned to the duffle bag and swayed with the motion, but Derek steadied him. With Derek keeping him stable, Stiles could almost forget how his rib cage felt too small, how, despite taking gulps of air, he breathed through a coffee straw.

He sifted blindly through the bottles and jars, swaying. His muscles were jelly, his bones were stone-stiff. He eventually just shut his eyes and leaned against Derek. Nothing he brought was labeled, and all the containers were pretty much identical. But he could distinguish them. Something about how they interacted with the molecules around them—something of an aura or energy signature. They each felt different against his skin. He heard Derek growl in frustration as he tried to help, and Stiles murmured broken assurances that it was okay. Stiles threw up twice more before he sorted out the ingredients he needed, and Derek held him up and rubbed his back through both bouts.

“There’s—water bottle—under the f-front seat,” Stile said. He leaned heavily against the Jeep while Derek fetched it. A niggling in the back of his head—the same hum or buzz or drive that told him he _knew things_ —brought up an unprecedented and sudden disgust for his clothes. Or at least his shirt and hoodie. The material was sticky with sick and cold against his skin; it smelled like rot. Even without the sudden, obsessive need to be rid of it, ridding himself of it was reasonable. So he tried to do that. He wiggled awkwardly against the soft cotton prison of his hoodie and had to throw a leg out to catch himself before he fell.

Hands that decidedly were not Derek’s—no, definitely not big enough—caught and righted him. Not Derek but just as strong, just as familiar, and just as cautious.

“Stiles, what happened?”

Scott. Oh, Scott was here. Great. Fantastic. Perfect.

“What are you—Oh, God, what _is_ that?” Kira. Both packs answered their call.

Something like cancer. Something like death. Something his stomach kept violently purging. Stiles could only give a pitiful whine, panting, still trying to escape his hoodie.

“Derek, what the hell? We need to get him to the hospital.”

“No,” Derek said. And though his vision was still unreliable, Stiles could hear Derek’s boots in the dead leaves as he rounded the Jeep. “This isn’t hospital worthy.”

“Are you kidding me?” Scott screeched. “He’s bleeding and he’s—oh, shit!”

Stiles doubled over and gagged when more mucus bubbled up his throat. He coughed, and lowered himself to the ground where he could brace himself with his hands while he heaved. The muscles of his left shoulder tore with each wracking expulsion.

“Oh, Stiles.” Erica, this time. The packs really did come through, didn’t they?

“ ‘M fine,” he groaned between coughs.

“Back up,” Derek barked. “Give him some goddamn room.”

Keeping his eyes on the ground, Stiles noted the outlines of leaves, the way his vomit caught what faint light trickled through the forest canopy to glisten like pitch. It was easier to focus on what was literally right in front of him than attempting to placate anyone. Quick shuffling announced the dispersal of the pack, and suddenly it was just he and Derek again, though he assumed the others lingered nearby.

“I have the water bottle. Now what?”

“My h-hoodie ‘n—‘n my shirt.” Stiles closed his eyes and pressed his forehead again the damp ground, mindful of his sick. A new ache formed in his chest, one flaring with each futile inhale and each agonizing exhale, and maybe his body was finally exhausting itself. How long had he been at this business of breathing? It felt like hours. Hours since the aswang dropped him, hours since Derek found him. And he was tired. So, so tired.

Razor points lightly raked his back, hard enough to be felt, but not nearly enough to wound, and his spine arched, a painful slave to muscle memory. Stiles, too weak to withstand the pull, rocked with each tug as Derek freed him of the tattered remains of his clothes. His shoulder holster, shredded, fell away heavily.

Chest bare and exposed to the chilly night, the severity of his situation floated distantly in his awareness. The flesh of his arm split in four places, gashes from the aswang’s claws when it knocked his weapon away. And from those wounds, black tendrils webbed outward against his pale skin.

He couldn’t help it—Stiles laughed. When Derek had been shot with wolfsbane and prepared for Stiles to amputate his arm, his wound looked eerily similar. It was so long ago, back when Stiles tried so hard not to be terrified of Derek and Derek tried so hard to be terrifying. Seeing Derek, suffering and pale, had been the first time since his mother that Stiles was convinced he’d watch someone die.

_“Derek. Derek, come on, wake up. Scott, what the hell are we gonna do?”_

_“I don’t know!”_

_“He’s not waking up! I think he’s dying. I think he’s dead!”_

_“Just hold on!”_

Scott must have noticed Stiles’ wounds. “Fuck it. Derek, he needs a doctor. Or Deaton. We’re done fucking around.”

“Will Deaton help him?” Derek demanded. “Or will we be left on our own, like with the harpies? Or the naiad?”

“He’s—of course he’s—but—”

“But what, Scott?” Derek pushed, low and dangerous. “He’s pack? Is that what you were going to say? He’s pack, so of course Deaton will help him?” He waited a beat, and Stiles could vividly see the expectant arch of his eyebrows in his mind’s eye.

Scott’s silence was deafening.

_Too late._

Stiles shivered harder now, colder than ever and sinking into helplessness and a finality he didn’t think he could quite overcome. Too much time. They’d wasted too much time. Even if he could get to Deaton, even if Deaton was willing to help, there wasn’t _time_. But Derek was a warm and solid mass beside him, sturdy and steadfast where Stiles felt less and less tethered. He leaned into Derek, who accepted him without hesitation, running broad strokes of his hand along Stiles’ flank, and Jesus, dying would be bearable as long as Derek kept touching him.

“How do I help?” Derek murmured.

“You might h-have to—to cut my arm off,” Stiles teased weakly.

Derek huffed and bumped his nose against Stiles’ temple, fond. It would probably hurt to think about it later. “Tell me how to help.”

“Help me up.”

He did, gentle and cautious, his veins black to ease Stiles’ pain, his hands firmly guiding him. But Stiles only got up as far as his knees, and he leaned heavily over the edge of the Jeep. His world slanted as he pressed heavy and limp against Derek, as he reached with trembling, half-numb hands, and started pouring powders and herbs into the water bottle. He squinted through his blurred, swimming vision, and occasionally jerked away to throw up under the Jeep.

Derek steadied his hands when they shook too hard, held him up when he was sick, and kept him focused with quiet encouragements when he stalled.

Stiles sealed the bottle when the recipe—called from some source he didn’t have the capacity to examine—was complete, and shook its contents. There was some water already in the bottle, just enough, to moisten the herbs and powders and turn them into a paste. He keeled suddenly when everything between his shoulders and pelvis spasmed, hanging desperately from the edge of his Jeep. He whimpered, sobbed when it became too much. Even with Derek’s constant contact, constant leeching of pain, Stiles’ nerves stilled fried and left him quivering. Already doubled over, the distance to lay flat on the ground was a short one to traverse.

“Stiles?” Derek cupped his face and, leaning over him, ran an urgent thumb along his cheek bone. “Stiles, focus. You need to focus. What’s the next step? What do we do now?”

“ S’kay, Der. ‘M okay.” He wasn’t. Everyone knew he wasn’t; they could see it, and the wolves could probably smell it. Lying flat on his back and looking up at Derek, Stiles realized how achingly beautiful the alpha was, how lovely a halo what he could see of the night sky made around Derek’s handsome face. Stiles’ arms were lead, his chest weighted, his heart thudded its war drum beat so loud and fast, it echoed enough to muffle Derek’s voice.

Derek wretched the water bottle from Stiles’ limp grasp and slashed it in half with his claws. “Stiles, no. Don’t. You’re not okay. Not yet. Tell me what to do.”

“Derek…” Scott said his name as a quiet warning.

“Back off!” Derek snarled, and Stiles smirked when Derek’s eyes flashed red.

“Here,” Stiles offered, “L-leave Scott—leave ‘im alone, ‘kay?” He willed his arm to rise. It did, marginally, but enough. He scooped two fingers worth of the paste from its plastic container and tucked it into his cheek like dip. He chewed it, a cow with cud, but let it work through every corner of his mouth before forcing it down his throat with a painful swallow.

“If this doesn’t work,” Derek started. “I’m—”

“Not a wolf,” Stiles murmured. “Not gonna b-be—your beta.”

“I’ll do what I did with Cora,” the werewolf promised. Already the veins of his arms, dark against his skin, pulsed with well-worn paths of Stiles’ pain.

Which, _what_? Reversing the effects of _mistletoe_ poisoning had almost killed Derek, nearly ripped his alpha status right from the marrow of his bones. Trying to neutralize _aswang toxin_ , something no one even understood? No. _No_. Derek would die. It was too dangerous. Stiles wouldn’t let him; Stiles _couldn’t_ let him.

He scooped more of the paste onto his fingers and took a deep, shuttering, utterly wasteful breath. Stiles’ chest strained against tightness that had no external cause, filled his lungs with air they couldn’t use, stretched the muscles cramping down in wild spasms. “Hold me down, Der,” he whispered. _Hold me, because you could be the last thing I feel._ Then he closed his eyes and relaxed.

Somewhere deep beneath the pain, somewhere below the firing and misfiring of neurons, the utter train wrecks through his nervous system, somewhere through the fog and the confusion and the biting agony, Stiles just barely made out a hum. It was soft, easily slipping through his grasp, but it was the same sort of identifying hum the herbs resonated. It was the same hum that let him turn two inches of mountain ash into twenty yards of mountain ash. It radiated outward in waves Stiles traced with his mind, manipulated like plucking the strings of his guitar. It was primal and basic and the wildest incarnation of an id he could ever imagine, but he trusted it. He trusted it because there was nothing else he could trust as he felt his body shutting down while he still occupied it.

“Stiles? Stiles!” Derek sounded panicked now, but while Stiles had retreated to track down his—his _spark_ —he’d done as asked and held him down. The werewolf’s body was a solid weight against his own, broad hands pushing hard against Stiles’ shoulders. But instead of holding them steady, he was shaking them.

Stiles didn’t answer. He couldn’t spare the energy to, not if he would somehow control the limp meat of his arm and the numb extensions of his fingers. With his eyes still closed, he dragged his fingers down his own chest in lines and sweeps and swirls, the outlines of which he traced from a template wrought from the ether, from his subconscious. As he started moving, Derek stopped trying to rouse him.

“Uisg’ an Easain, Air mo dhosan.” Stiles recognized his own voice through the haze, but it was faint and cracking like an old record. The force moving his hand down his chest, painting his flesh with symbols, also moved his lips, guided whatever air in his lungs past his larynx to make him speak. “Tog dhiom do rosad. ‘S aghaidh fir an cabhig orm.” Over and over, he said the words. Over and over, he traced the symbols down his sternum, down then up and back again. Over and over, until the words and the symbols and the essence of the herbs fused with his very being. Over and over, until he became the chant. “Uisg’ an Easain, Air mo dhosan. Tog dhiom do rosad. ‘S aghaidh fir an cabhig orm.”

Stiles lurched up without warning, lucid and aware— _awake_ —as his back arched like a hook yanked his ribs. He gasped and choked and sobbed as blessed oxygen flooded his system. The world came into razor sharp focus, and despite the hour, colors bloomed. He bucked and thrashed, something like power or energy rolling through him and burned fire-hot to purge what poisoned him. Derek’s hands were points of cool relief where he held him down, and flashes of terrified red eyes flicked through Stiles’ awareness. Derek hovered over him, watching, waiting for some indication to intervene. It wasn’t necessary.

Stiles dropped to the ground with a thud, then promptly curled onto his side and threw up one final time.

Exorcising the toxin left Stiles an alert consciousness trapped in a prison of flesh and bone. He wasn’t dying, he wasn’t sick, but he was _weak_ —not as an expression, but a medical condition. He felt heavy, little more than a mass of tissue exiting solely to take up space, and his very essence dully ached. He groaned when Derek climbed off of him and turned him onto his back, but was grateful to escape his vomit’s suffocating stench.

“Is it over?” Kira asked.

“I don’t—” Tentative steps approached where Stiles lay, then stopped. Scott asked, “Derek…?”

“I think he’s okay,” Derek answered. A gentle touch smoothed back his hair, damp with sweat and maybe some blood, and Stiles hummed contentedly. What he saw of Derek’s smile, however, made it worth it. Derek slid his arms beneath Stiles’ body and lifted him, like he had when he first found him, and held him bridal-style. Stiles’ face pressed against his chest, and he didn’t bother to move it. Stiles could fall asleep like that, and very nearly did. “He smells okay.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Erica teased, and her relief was almost palpable.

Derek continued giving directions to the others, something about going to the hospital to see Melissa, something about burning the aswang’s body, something about making sure Stiles and Lydia were actually alright. Derek even went so far as to make sure Stiles’ and Lydia’s weapons and cell phones were accounted for, that neither had lost their keys in the dark. But the specifics were lost to Stiles; who was ordered to do what, he couldn’t say, and it didn’t matter. He was cradled so carefully in Derek’s arms, held aloft from the cold, damp ground, kept warm and safe, when sleep tried to pull him under, he didn’t fight it. Derek’s heart thumped steadily against his cheek.

Everything would be okay, because Derek was there.

Stiles went under between one beat and the next.

 

###

 

“It’s not that serious, Dad.”

The Sheriff balked, sputtered angrily, and jabbed an accusatory finger in Stiles’ direction before snapping his mouth shut and turning his back to him. Distance—a habit from the days after Stiles’ mother died. It allowed inanimate objects to be targeted instead of his son.

Stiles sat in his hospital bed and waited.

When he woke up, Melissa had been the only one with him, checking his vitals and fussing in that way that always left him aching for his mother. She explained his injuries and condition: lacerations along his neck—twelve stitches, bandaged, keep dry; lacerations across his right forearm—eighty stitches, bandaged, keep dry; dehydration—from an eternity of puking cancer; fatigue—from literally everything else; the doctor wanted to keep him under observation for a few hours, maybe a day, before sending him home. She had been gentle and concerned and chastised him for his recklessness. She made a hasty exit when his father arrived.

_Traitor._

“I wanted a call, from _you_ , after you found _information_ , not a call, from _Derek_ , after you found _the thing itself_. And nearly got killed in the process!”

Stiles, suddenly eleven again, in the smoky and stuffy kitchen. His father screaming at him with slurred words, and Jack-glassy eyes. Rambling about ‘dumb kid,’ and ‘can’t stay out of trouble’ and ‘oh, God, can’t lose you too.’ The wall behind the stove charred black; the stove burner caked in burnt baking soda; dinner a colossal failure; and Stiles with a bright red and blistering burn on the heel of his palm. His dad’s tears for almost losing his son. His own for making his dad cry.

“So, I got banged up a bit,” Stiles said, shrugging. A lame attempt with how his left shoulder crackled in pain. It seemed to only fuel his father’s anger. “So, what? I’m alive. The aswang is dead. Everyone goes home happy.”

The Sheriff was unimpressed.

“They’re not even keeping me overnight,” Stiles continued. “And at least you know I got hurt. It’s not like you came home, completely unaware, and found Derek tucking me in.”

“That is not the same thing, Stiles, and you know it.”

Eyebrows raised incredulously, Stiles asked, “Isn’t it, though?”

“It’s my job to protect this town and to protect you. It’s not your business—”

“It is, Dad! It _is_ my business!” Anger or exertion had him trembling, had his chest tightening, and Stiles’ heart kicked up a notch in preparation for a fight. The monitor by his bedside spiked. “It’s you and Scott out there fighting these things. It’s you and Derek putting your lives on the line. It’s you and every other person I’ve ever cared about _courting death_. My family and my pack. So yeah, that’s pretty much my fucking business.”

His father waited a long time before answering, and in that time, Stiles sat with his shoulders squared and his jaw set, all but daring to be contested. When his father finally did speak, Stiles was left wrecked. “Scott and Derek are werewolves, Stiles. You’re human, and you’re my son.”

Stiles blinked back angry, indignant tears, and dropped his gaze. He scratched at the gauze pads taped over his neck, but flinched when the pressure irritated the freshly stitched wounds.

_“I’m 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bone, okay? Sarcasm is my only defense!”_

Werewolf whisperer. Surrogate sacrifice. Nogitsune host. Murderer. But human?

_Maybe not after tonight._

Stiles nodded, conceding to his father. Not that it was his burden to bear, he did so with only mild resentment—it was his fault he went against his father’s wishes, it was his fault the aswang had blind-sided him, it was his fault he’d worried and scared his father. It wasn’t his fault, however, that they’d decided, collectively, to ostracize him and Lydia. ‘Out’ didn’t mean ‘no longer cared,’ but somehow the two had become synonymous. Had they honestly expected him to accept demotion to ‘supernatural consultant’? “How’s Lydia?” he asked.

“Okay,” the Sheriff said, and the tension between them temporarily evaporated. Stiles didn’t doubt it would build again, but for now…this was tolerable. “Shaken, but okay. They checked her out and released her. She wanted to wait until you woke up, but Cora convinced her to go home and clean up once we knew you were stable.”

“…the others?”

“Your wolves are fine.”

 _His wolves._ Right.

A moment later, the Sheriff added, “But call Scott.”

“Why?” Stiles asked. Despite how he kept the worry from his face, the heart monitor gave him away when it jumped.

“Derek wouldn’t let him get near you, and he’s worried. So give him a call, okay?” The Sheriff approached the bed and pulled Stiles’ cell phone from his pocket. “Lydia, too. She specifically wants to hear from you.”

Stiles took the phone with a trembling hand. In a rush of weakness, a flash of uncertainty, he asked, “Dad…are we okay?” And no sooner had the words escaped him, his dad wrapped him in a tight hug. Fuck, he just didn’t want to be replaced. He didn’t want to be forgotten.

“Jesus, Stiles, of course we’re okay. We’re always okay. I love you.”

With a shaky breath, Stiles clung to his dad, fisting the material of his uniform, comforted by the hard press of his metal badge against his chest. “Love you, too.”

 

###

 

Stiles endured a few more minutes of his dad radiating quiet disappointment before the Sheriff fetched a bag of clothes for Stiles from his cruiser, then left to return to work. Melissa checked on him not long afterward and brought him a Gatorade from the vending machine. He was stable. He was an adult. There was no reason to hang around while he recovered from his medical fatigue and the aswang seared itself into his subconscious to terrorize him in sleep. But he had calls to make, and that would keep him busy until another bout of drowsiness pulled him under.

He called Lydia first.

“You goddamn stupid fucking _moron_!”

Laughing, Stiles said, “Good to hear from you too, Lyds.”

“I swear to God, Stiles, if you _ever_ do something that monumentally idiotic again, I’ll maim you myself.”

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he said softly.

Lydia stayed silent for a long time, and Stiles started to worry she’d hung up on him.

“Lyds?”

“When are you coming home?”

“A few hours, maybe,” he answered. He leaned back on the pillows of his narrow bed and curled up as much as he could beneath the thin blankets. It felt good to have Lydia in his ear. If he closed his eyes, he could almost convince himself she was beside him. “They’re just keeping me for observation. I’m stable. They don’t think anything will go sideways. But, you know…precautions.” He grinned, even if Lydia wasn’t there to see it. “Melissa might be able to get me out sooner if I can convince her I’ll have a chaperone. Hint hint.”

“Oh, no. No no no. You got yourself into that mess, you can suffer through it. I will not have you here with me just to crash and rush back to the hospital. No. _No_.”

He considered arguing, just to tease. He considered pleading, just to escape the plank of a hospital bed. He considered…how he dragged Lydia out into the woods to hunt a monster neither of them really stood a chance against. They weren’t the children of a hunter with years of training under their belts, like Allison. They weren’t werewolves with super speed and strength and healing, like Scott or Derek. They weren’t kitsune with lightening at their fingertips and an affinity for Japanese weaponry, like Kira. Lydia might have been a banshee, but when it came to violence and injury, she might as well have been human. Just like…well, regardless of whatever he may or may not be, Stiles was still squishy the way he’d always been. God, he could have gotten her killed. He could have gotten himself killed in front of her.

“Fine fine,” he acquiesced softly. “I’ll spare you taking responsibility of me. But, to be fair, it’s not like you don’t already do it, so I don’t know why this would be any—”

“I’m happy you’re feeling better, Stiles,” Lydia interrupted. “Goodnight.”

“Are you serious right now?” he hissed. “I’m all alone here and you’re just gonna ditch me like that? Rude.”

“Goodnight, Stiles,” Cora chimed over the line.

“Ugh. You’re both horrible. Horrible, I say! OkayIloveyouGoodnight.” He ended the call before either of them could tease him further. Staring at his phone, he couldn’t stifle the faint jealousy welling in his chest. Lydia, whatever her reasons, had Cora again. She wasn’t alone after….after tonight. If she woke up screaming from it, she had someone to hold her.

He was thankful for it, since he was confined to a hospital bed. If he couldn’t be there for her, he was happy Lydia let Cora be there for her instead. But Stiles had nightmares, too, and he worried about waking up screaming. The heart monitor spiked when he considered the staff’s reaction—holding him down as he screamed himself hoarse, injecting him with some sedative that trapped him with terrors.

But he could postpone the inevitable for just a little while longer. He had to call Scott up, but he didn’t know what to say. So he kept it simple.

 

 **To: Scott**  
**dad said to contact you. im fine.**  
Send.

 

 **From: Scott**  
**u scared the shit out of us. u sure ur good? can i come c u?**

 

 **To: Scott**  
**no. im not your pack.**  
Delete.

 

 **To: Scott**  
**no. you shut me out.**  
Delete.

 

 **To: Scott**  
**no. you lied about my dad.**  
Delete.

 

 **To: Scott**  
**no. i don’t think i can stand to see you because im too angry. i don’t think i can stand to have you act like you care when you kinda don’t anymore. it doesn’t feel like bros anymore. i don’t think you trust me anymore. ive been picking up the pieces of the mess you made. i don’t know what’s happening to me and im scared but i don’t think i can come to you with it. i miss you and im just starting to be okay with it. please don’t make it worse.**  
Delete.

 

 **To: Scott.**  
**no. kinda tired. not staying long anyway. catch up later.**  
Send.

 

Stiles blinked back tears for all of thirty seconds before he shook his head and scrubbed his face. He sent one more message, then turned off the phone screen and huddled under scratchy blankets. When wet tracks raced down his face, across his nose and cheek to soak the pillow that was all manner of wrong, he told himself it was because the pillow wasn’t _his_ pillow. He wouldn’t sleep well even though he was dog-tired, but he told himself it wasn’t because he was alone.

 

 **To: Adam  
** **cali is such a drag after ny. can’t wait to go back.**

 

His phone lit up an instant later with a new message.

 

 **From: Adam  
** **can’t wait to see you.**

 

###

 

When he was discharged early the following morning, Stiles, bandaged with his left arm in a sling, assured the worried nurses with smiles and lies. They worked with Melissa, and he was the Sheriff’s son. They may contact someone if anything seemed amiss.

Yes, his father knew he was being released. No, he didn’t want to bother his dad after a night shift. Yes, he was feeling fine, thanks. Yes, he had a ride home, a friend was getting him. His friend’s name?

“Uh, Derek. Derek Hale.”

Because his was the first name to come to mind, and removed enough from the Sheriff and Lydia should anything seem suspicious about Stiles’ release.

He signed some paperwork, collected a few prescriptions, his belongings, and left. Avoiding any vaguely familiar staff members, Stiles ducked around the building, and jogged across an empty street. He made a quick stop at a convenience store to buy a few water bottles, and odds and ends before he took a cab to the preserve.

As he paid the driver, Stiles recalled Derek instructing someone to burn the aswang’s body; but in the whirlwind of Stiles’ failing health, it might have been forgotten, to be resolved sometime later. The pervading ‘animal attacks’ had kept most people out of the woods, so if the body was left, there was little fear of its discovery. Even if, by some chance, it was found, he’d heard from Melissa that Lydia had left it unrecognizable, anyway. But if it had not been burned as Derek instructed, maybe Derek mentioned it to the Sheriff and Parrish was sent to do the job.

Stiles shook his head and squared his shoulders in an effort to slow his racing thoughts. If the body was still there, great. If it wasn’t, he’d make do. He made sure the cab was well out of sight before he made his way into the woods.

The tracks of the Jeep were easy enough to find, easy enough to follow—their treads were practically troughs through the soft dirt. Stiles didn’t remember driving through the woods for very long before crossing the aswang, but the walk had him second-guessing. Maybe it was just because he was walking. The woods looked completely different during the day, anyway.

The night before came back to him in flashes, sudden waves of realization and recognition, like his subconscious was working to solve the puzzle without his knowledge and only sporadically kept him abreast. It was bad enough the memory-forming part of his brain had temporarily gone offline—he knew, vaguely, that he’d done something unnatural. In the panic of an endorphin flood, Stiles had just done whatever he needed to try to survive, whatever his instincts told him to do. It was...weird. Was it comparable to what Derek and Scott called ‘their wolf’? That basic, animal impulse? Maybe. Stiles didn’t know. He didn’t remember what it was, exactly, he’d done, but he remembered Derek’s worry, Derek’s confusion. How Derek leaned over him and _watched_ him, like he was something terrifying and dangerous—like he was possessed again. Stiles knew he’d done _something_. And, well, Derek was mostly what he remembered without his subconscious’ help.

Derek holding him, Derek comforting him, Derek’s warmth, Derek’s strength. Derek Derek Derek.

Stiles found where he’d slammed on the brakes and the several feet of deeper tread where the Jeep slid. There, where they’d given chase, the tracks didn’t end—someone had driven his Jeep out of the preserve—but Stiles’ understanding of the night did.

Because where he’d been sick so many times, where he’d done things he couldn’t quite recall, where Derek had held him down…there was nothing. Stiles had been throwing up _death_ , he remembered that, and his stomach throbbed sympathetically at the recollection. He could still taste its sickly sweetness if he concentrated hard enough. He’d puked it by what had felt like the gallons. How was there nothing left of it after less than eighteen hours?

He crouched around the approximation of the Jeep’s back end, grabbed a nearby stick, and prodded the dead leaves and dirt. Shifting them this way and that, he looked for something, anything proving he’d been sick there. But nothing stood out, and nothing looked unnaturally or freshly disturbed beyond Stiles’ own poking.

What the fuck?

Stiles tossed the stick aside with a frustrated grunt and hauled himself to his feet. He was still a bit unsteady, still a bit weak, but he’d manage. He had to. He’d already brought enough people into this mess, and he didn’t need anyone chasing after him while he tried to sort things out. Besides, there had to be another way to get what he needed.

There had to be another way to get a sample of aswang toxin.

Short of traipsing around the woods in a search of body he didn’t know the location of, a body he knew the others would be looking to destroy—and unless he wanted to risk a run-in with them and endure an interrogation—looking for the body was the least favorable option.

Okay, what did he know?

He knew he’d nearly hit the aswang with his Jeep here, right where he was standing. He’d stopped, gotten weapons, checked on Lydia and helped her out of the car. Then they walked in…

Stiles spun were he stood and found the general direction they’d chased the aswang. He started walking, and yes, he found his and Lydia’s footprints. Yes, this was where they’d gone. Somewhere…here. Stiles stopped when he found the spot. Somewhere here, the aswang had shown up over there, to Stiles’ right. Yeah, he remembered that. And then he’d chased it. Stiles veered to the right and followed what tracks were left from the night before. It was difficult—it must have rained, or maybe a wind had kicked up, because the prints were faint. But soon enough, he came to the clearing where Lydia had found him after they’d separated, the clearing where the aswang nearly killed him.

This was where Derek had found him.

Stiles looked up to the trees, to where the aswang had ominously perched and ready to strike. It pulled on the stitches in his neck, and he had to squint to see clearly, but yes, there, well above where he could reach, there were traces of…something. It looked a little like sap, and could easily be mistaken for such. But that had to be it. It had to be the toxin.

His phone startled him when it buzzed and chimed in his pocket. A new text message flashed expectantly.

 

 **From: Sourwolf  
** **How are you feeling?**

 

Stiles hesitated briefly before answering.

 

**To: Sourwolf  
fine.**

 

Then he added:

 

 **To: Sourwolf  
** **jsyk if anyone asks, i told the nurses you’d pick me up. i’m already out tho, so no worries.**

**From: Sourwolf  
** **Do you need a ride? Where are you?**

 

 **To: Sourwolf  
** **out. of the hospital. i’m fine.**

**From: Sourwolf  
Okay.**

**From: Sourwolf  
** **Stiles, we need to talk.**

 

Stiles sighed and rolled his eyes.

 

**From: Sourwolf  
Please.**

That one word— _please_ —it did things to Stiles. He clutched his phone and closed his eyes in an attempt to regulate his breathing. He could imagine the way Derek’s face would be so open and vulnerable, how earnestly he pleaded, how he’d lick his lips and swallow. He’d brace himself for the devastation that came with rejection, with someone having the power to hurt him and utilizing it.

_“I can’t keep doing this anymore.”_

_“Stiles, please, this isn’t—”_

_“No, Derek. Just…no.”_

Stiles had turned and stormed out of the loft before Derek could get in another word. He would have crumbled if Derek had pleaded any longer, had crumbled beneath similar pleas in much different circumstances. Something about Derek letting Stiles tear down his walls, something about Derek baring himself to Stiles in every conceivable way, something about Derek being stripped of every fire-forged defense—Stiles hadn’t known what to do with it. It had been too big, too significant, too important for Derek to feel safe in those rare moments. So Stiles always crumbled, always yielded, did everything he could to give Derek everything he had. He always would, because Derek had been hurt so much. And once upon a time, Stiles swore he’d never add to that.

Until he did.

**To: Sourwolf  
** **maybe later.**

 

“Stiles.”

Stiles flinched before he whipped around to find Derek standing only a few yards away from him. Then again, why wouldn’t Derek be there? It was the Nemeton. It was looking for Scott’s inhaler. It was the high school gym, the lacrosse field, Jungle. It was every time Derek had ever shown up when Stiles didn’t want him to, when Stiles was _fine_ and didn’t need help.

Wait. No. That wasn’t right.

This was where Derek found him the night before, when Stiles had dislocated his shoulder and been poisoned. This was where Derek found him and _listened to him_. Subsequently, Derek helped save him. Subsequently, Stiles owed Derek his life.

“Should I even bother asking?” Stiles groaned. He spun around melodramatically, head still tilted skyward, because he could never catch a damn break. He tugged at his hair with his good hand. “What the fuck, Derek?” There was no escape, there was no autonomy where Derek was concerned. Just his pressing presence and his demanding gaze. But Derek wasn’t his boyfriend, or his bedmate, or his anything. Derek was just some guy he used to fuck.

And Derek had saved him. By listening to him. By preventing Scott’s interference.

Stiles wanted to throw up.

“Something attacked and nearly killed you,” he said simply, “as well as several innocent people. It’s been in my territory, and I want to know how it escaped us for so long. Why are _you_ here?”

“I don’t owe you anything, Derek,” Stiles sniped. “I don’t owe you an explanation, and I don’t owe you my time.”

Except he kind of did, and Stiles hated it.

Derek shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and let his shoulders sag. “You’re right,” he said, “you don’t.” He took a breath, and a determined line set along his jaw before he closed the distance between them. His strides were steady, confident, and Stiles had to stop himself from taking a reflexive step back. “But something happened last night, and it needs to be discussed. If not with me, then with Scott.”

Stiles watched him for a long moment, watched how worry creased his brow, how his posturing ebbed. He was the same Derek Stiles had always known, but completely different. Something about him was effortless now, where he’d been trying in the past. Stiles heaved a shaky breath, and when he exhaled, most of his fire for a fight went with it. It was easy to imagine Derek as an enemy, as something to stay away from, but when faced with the man himself…things became harder.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest. Jesus, Stiles was pathetic.

Maybe Derek noticed, because his expression softened in increments until he was the Derek Stiles had—the Derek Stiles had—Stiles dropped his gaze, unable to look at him. It still hurt, and Stiles was still hurting. But fuck all if, even while throwing up cancer, it hadn’t felt good to be held like he was something cared for, like he was something precious.

“What did you want to discuss?” Stiles asked quietly. As his throat locked up and his eyes burned, as he continued to watch the ground right in front of his feet, he let Derek take the reins. Stiles just…couldn’t. It felt too much like losing control, and Stiles…Stiles didn’t trust himself.

“Are you okay to discuss it?” Derek countered, gentle. “You smell hurt, upset. Do you want to go somewhere?”

With a faint nod, Stiles said, “I’m fine, Derek, really.” It didn’t come out nearly as sarcastic or dismissive as Stiles had hoped. No, he sounded like he was trying to genuinely reassure Derek, and it was just such a natural thing to do. Stiles wanted to scream. “And here is fine. What did you want to ask?”

“What happened,” Derek answered. “I want to know what happened last night. You were—Stiles, I thought you were going to die in my arms. I just need—I would like—” and the correction was so quick, Stiles huffed a soft chuckle. “—if you could help me understand what happened, I’d appreciate it. I’m…worried.”

Derek was so fearful of scaring Stiles off, of Stiles shutting down and shutting him out, it was almost endearing. Almost. If it didn’t feel like it was a year and some too late.

When Stiles finally lifted his head to meet Derek’s gaze, his vision blurred with tears he didn’t anticipate. He couldn’t give Derek an answer, couldn’t quell his concern. Stiles, again, was unable to give Derek what he needed. And Stiles was never more of a failure than when he failed Derek. He thought he’d be over it, would have accepted his role as ‘Someone Else Who Fucked Derek Over,’ but it hurt. It hurt to see Derek hurt and know he’d caused it. “I don’t know,” Stiles said softly. “I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what I did, but I know I did something.” He paused, looked down at his trembling hands. The sensory memory of slick blood was familiar, but his hands themselves felt foreign. “I…don’t remember a lot, and I…”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Derek soothed. Stiles had just enough time to register Derek moving before the werewolf crowded into his space. Derek radiated heat where Stiles felt chilled, and he wanted to lean in close against the soft leather of Derek’s jacket. Derek wrapped Stiles’ hands in his own, ran his thumbs over the backs of his knuckles, and Stiles stared where they touched. “It’s okay,” Derek said again. He just kept rubbing his hands, just kept him grounded.

Stiles didn’t know how long they stood there, close enough for him to smell Derek’s cologne—free from the metallic tang of blood, close enough where only the slightest shift would have his forehead pressed against Derek’s shoulder, close enough where, if he only tilted his head just a bit, he could—

“Would you like to know what I think?” Derek offered.

Stiles hummed softly.

The werewolf tightened his grip on his hands, and Stiles shivered. “I think you’re developing emissary powers.” Then Derek’s veins went black as he absorbed the pain of Stiles’ residual aches and broken heart.

Stiles’ breath stuttered.

“My pack needs one. Your spark is trying to answer that need.”

Huffing a gentle laugh, Stiles said, “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

But it did. Stiles hadn’t wanted to hear it, hadn’t wanted to believe it, so he’d disconnected the call with Scott before anyone could elaborate. That’s why Scott called Stiles about the harpies, about the naiad. That’s why Deaton wasn’t really helping Derek and his pack anymore.

Stiles was the replacement.

“You’re lying,” Derek said, amused. “I know you know it’s true. You have the ability to—” He paused, swallowed, then continued with a note of quiet awe, “You could be my emissary.”

Stiles’ lips pressed into a thin line, and he gave a faint nod. Then he took a deep breath through his nose before he yanked his hands away and took a large, intentional step away. After the first step, he took another, and another. It was only when he was a good four dramatic paces away from Derek he finally met the werewolf’s bewildered gaze.

“And how would that work out, Derek?” Stiles asked. He didn’t let the open wounds of Derek’s eyes sway him, despite how much it hurt to see Derek hurt. This wasn’t about Derek’s needs. Derek had already shown Stiles he couldn’t fulfill them—he’d started fucking Jennifer, after all. No, this was about Stiles’ needs. Just like when things ended. Just like when Stiles applied to NYU. Just like when he moved. “Would we be more of a Morrell-Deucalion sort of team, where I keep you, frothing, on a tight leash? Or, I don’t know, would a Jennifer-Kali dynamic be more of what you had in mind? That way—” Stiles hesitated to bolster his courage before continuing, “That way you can fuck me, then leave me bleeding at the first opportunity for something better?”

Derek took a shuddering breath, and stared at Stiles beseechingly, flicking from his eyes to the set of his mouth to the way he held his shoulders. Whatever Derek had been expecting, if the horror on his face was any indication, it wasn’t such vicious retaliation. _Good._ “Stiles,” he started. “I would never—”

“What was it she called emissaries? Jennifer, I mean,” Stiles asked, bulldozing over Derek’s words. “The Overlooked?”

Derek looked gutted.

Fuck, he couldn’t do this. Not now. Not again.

Stiles sighed and let the fight leave him. His anger burned like glowing coals, but he only had the energy to sustain the fire a few fleeting moments at a time. His shoulder hurt, his neck hurt, his everything hurt, and as much as he wanted to fight Derek, he also really didn’t want to fight Derek.

“Stiles,” Derek tried again, and he schooled the hurt from his expression—resolved, if not a little resigned. Derek just _took it_. Whatever Stiles threw out there, Derek accepted, and Stiles died a little inside to see it. This wasn’t his alpha. Not the one he knew. And who had he become to fling words like daggers at a man whose heart so easily bled? “That’s not how emissary-alpha relationships work. Deucalion was deranged, and Morrell couldn’t control him. Emissaries don’t _control_ alphas. That’s not—and then Jennifer,” and he had the sense to look a little sick saying her name. “Kali betrayed Jennifer and Jennifer sought revenge. Those are not model examples of how emissaries and alphas interact.” He laughed weakly. “You have to know that. I could never—”

“Derek, stop.”

He hesitated, but continued, “But you already fill so many of the emissary’s roles,” Derek argued, subdued. “You research our enemies, you answer my calls—”

“Technically, Scott called.”

“On my behalf, because I was injured.”

“Semantics,” Stiles huffed.

Derek’s lips quirked. “You take care of my pack, Stiles. Our pack.”

Stiles stared incredulously at Derek, forced himself to breathe while he cataloged the nuances of the alpha’s sincerity. He was so doubtful, and deep down so insecure, Stiles wished he could hear Derek’s heartbeat to find truth in its rhythm.

“I’m pack?” Stiles asked, because he was weak and couldn’t help it.

“You’ve always been pack.”

Around them, the forest’s murmurs of life thundered through the silence stretching between them. Free, for now, from the supernatural horrors Beacon Hills called from the shadowed corners of the world, birds sang and squirrels chattered. The mid-morning sun was bright where it dappled through the canopy of leaves. Even in winter, life thrived. It would have been beautiful if old wounds weren’t bleeding again.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said quietly. “I’ve been out of line.”

“It’s okay. It’s—”

“No, Derek, it’s not. It’s not fine, okay? None of this is fucking fine.” Stiles waved his good arm, gesturing to anything from the clearing in which they stood and all that happened in it, to the tension thrumming between them. His heart thumped in his chest, the first inklings of panic prickling at the base of his skull. Breathing in a rush, he said, “Nothing’s been fine for a long time, alright? And I just…I fucking can’t. I can’t deal with this right now. There’s so much going on in my head, and there’s so much I don’t understand, and I just need to figure it out, okay? I just need to figure it out.” He spun around once, twice, before pacing the few yards of the clearing, but each step left him more winded. Then he flung his hand towards the clumping aswang toxin still several feet out of his reach in a tree he didn’t have the strength to climb. “And I need to get that goddamn aswang venom because it’s dangerous and we have no idea what the fuck it does other than make you puke tar.”

And after all that—after Stiles’ verbal lashing and being reminded of Jennifer—Derek laughed, low and sweet, like Stiles was amusing or endearing. It left Stiles exposed and vulnerable in a way he hadn’t before, as if Derek knew something he didn’t. “Do you have something to put it in?”

Stiles glared at Derek with as much heat as he could muster given his fluttering heart and flushed face. Then he reached into the plastic convenience store bag for a water bottle. After dumping its contents, he tossed the bottle to Derek.

The werewolf snatched it from the air, and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket. Claws shot from his fingertips with a familiar snick. Stiles watched a little bit in awe as Derek effortlessly scaled the tree, movements fluid and lupine and incredible. Without immanent death looming over their heads, Stiles took the opportunity to really study what Derek looked like and did when he let the wolf slip through. Unsurprisingly, he was beautiful, graceful, and Stiles thought he may be learning the nuances between born wolves and bitten wolves. Derek and Scott: a seasoned apex predator and a puppy learning what its legs are for.

“Here, right?” Derek asked, and Stiles was jarred abruptly from his staring.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, craning his neck to see. “Be careful. I don’t know how it transmits.”

Derek dragged the water bottle’s mouth along the bark of the tree, scraping everything he could of the venom while avidly avoiding contact with his skin. When he dropped from his perch, he landed with a heavy thump, and closed the bottle. He presented it to Stiles with only the barest smile pulling at his lips.

“Thanks,” Stiles muttered. He accepted the bottle and dropped it into his plastic bag.

They stood staring at each other for a few heavy minutes, as if waiting for the smoke of Stiles’ heated words to clear. Once they could breathe again, once it didn’t hurt for Stiles’ chest to expand and Derek could sigh without his jaw twitching in pain, Derek reached for Stiles’ hand, which Stiles let him take. When Derek laced their fingers, Stiles didn’t argue, but he noticed the veins along the werewolf’s knuckles shadow. It made him drowsy, his body slowly remembering how exhausted it was.

Derek gave him a gentle tug. “Come on,” he said. “Let me drive you home.”

Stiles hummed and nodded, then followed Derek to the Camaro.

 

###

 

Stiles spent the rest of the day avoiding Scott’s concern and placating Lydia’s and his father’s worries. They watched him with sad eyes and pained smiles, and Stiles let them hug and hold him for their benefit.

Cora lingered in the Stilinski home; neither the Sheriff nor Stiles mentioned it. Lydia was an adult and could make her own decisions, but Stiles couldn’t help how his childhood home felt more and more like a fish bowl, like a prison. Privacy was nonexistent with a werewolf in the house, and Stiles couldn’t bear giving anything away.

He locked himself in his room and pulled his grimoire from the bottom of his duffle. He’d purchased it in New York, brought it to Beacon Hills on a whim, and originally thought it completely, utterly fake. He’d been wrong. So so wrong.

Initially, curiosity had driven him into the strange little new age store near campus. Not that he’d believed anything within it was legitimate, but he liked to appreciate people’s beliefs in fantasy for what they were: wishful thinking. He was envious of them, jealous. If only a $7.99 necklace could protect against psychic vampires. If only this $12.99 tiger’s eye knock off bracelet could balance the body’s energy. If only this mixture of herbs—all natural and only $4.99—could guard a home from malicious invaders. Stiles never believed in it—belief in miracles or magic died with his mother—but he missed when he was certain it was all bullshit. Then Scott was bitten. Then they met Derek Hale. Then everything went to shit.

“You alright?” Adam had placed a hand on Stiles’ arm just above his elbow, his touch familiar and intending to comfort. Stiles wasn’t sure what his expression had been, but it must have been unsettling.

“Yeah,” he’d said, placing his hand over Adam’s. He gave him a reassuring squeeze before stepping out of his reach and further into the shop. “Just got lost in my head for a second.”

“Wanna talk about it?” And fuck if that hadn’t made Stiles a little weak in the knees. Adam, who looked and talked and acted so much like Derek, was decidedly unlike Derek in the best ways.

In just the short time they’d known each other, Stiles was already smitten. Adam knew what he wanted and was forward enough to ask—“Can I blow you? Please let me blow you,” crowding Stiles into a library store room. He cared about how Stiles felt and what Stiles thought—“Hey, that girl seems really in to you. You okay with that? I can tell her to get lost, if you want,” blocking an overzealous sorority girl. Adam actively tried to get to know Stiles better—“You said you talked to your dad yesterday. How is he?” leaning in with bright, interested eyes. Adam was actively interested in Stiles—“Hey, maybe you can teach me lacrosse sometime?” standing in towel in the locker room of NYU’s gym.

“No, I’m good,” Stiles had said. “But you're super sweet for asking.”

He’d kissed him in plain sight of the cashiers, twining his fingers through Adam’s hair and pulling soft sounds from him with each caress of lips. He’d only pulled away when he felt Adam’s hands spasm against his hips, and the dazed look in his brown eyes left Stiles thoroughly satisfied.

After wandering the store for a while longer, Stiles had come across the grimoire. He’d known it for what it was, but he hadn’t believed it was real. The bottle of mountain ash he’d gotten shouldn’t have been real either, but lo and behold, after Stiles read the book and developed some vague sort of understanding he had no business having, he realized his purchases were authentic.

It was strange that the book he’d purchased with Adam had enough sway to be forgotten once faced with Derek. At the Nemeton, Stiles couldn’t remember what he’d been doing out there. He still couldn’t, days and a dead aswang later, decipher, let alone articulate, what he’d set out to do that night. Something had drawn him there—maybe the same energy that drew supernatural creatures to Beacon Hills. With his sudden ability to expulse aswang toxin from his own body with a weird Gaelic chant, Stiles wondered if the same force guiding him to save himself had guided him to the Nemeton that night.

No, he didn’t wonder. He knew.

Emissary. Spark.

Stiles skimmed the pages of the grimoire, insisting it was for research.

It was the inverse of when the Nogitsune possessed him. Under the influence of the spirit, Stiles couldn’t tell the difference between dreams and reality, and found solace in counting his fingers or in his ability to read. In his nightmares, his hands were unnaturally wide with too many digits. Words he should have been able to read—the instructions of a bear trap with Lydia’s ankle in the balance, the title of his econ textbook, the combination lock of his locker—were nothing but symbols, jumbled letters, letters from alphabets that were distinctly not-English. He knew what they should have said, but he couldn’t understand them. With the grimoire, symbols and letters he’d never seen before somehow made sense. Objectively, he couldn’t define them, but he could pronounce them, he understood the information they represented on the page.

With each page he scanned, the more his chest ached, the tighter his throat felt. The inherent truth of Derek’s words rang deep in the cavern of his chest and plucked ominously at the marrow of his bones. Stiles wondered if Lydia felt similarly when she discovered she was a banshee. Stiles wondered if the crushing dread eating at him was what Lydia felt when she realized what it all meant.

Stiles went to bed with the corner of his blanket stuffed in his mouth. When he woke screaming, it was already muffled by cotton, and no one bothered to check on him.

The next day found Stiles still avoiding Scott, subtlety abandoned.

Lydia and the Sheriff remained worried when Scott arrived and Stiles locked himself in his room, refusing visitors. Though he was accused of being a petulant child, Stiles didn’t budge. And when Scott forced the door open, Stiles ignored him so thoroughly, Scott roared and slammed Stiles against the wall in some last desperate attempt to get a response. Suddenly, Scott was freshly bitten and Stiles was forbidding him to see Allison. But now, as he did then, Stiles didn’t flinch.

Scott stormed out in a whirlwind of frustration and maybe horror, but Stiles rotated his shoulders and quietly closed his bedroom door. If anyone noticed his fresh bruises, no one said anything.

Stiles ran a test spell—an ignition, a flame—and watched his reflection in the bathroom mirror say words he didn’t know, but _knew_ , with intent he could hardly conceive, but he could conjure. When his eyes flashed milk-white, just like Jennifer Blake’s, the paper caught, the spell complete, but Stiles dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and puked.

He locked himself in his room when Lydia warily asked about the smell of smoke.

On the third day after Stiles’ release from the hospital, a package arrived.

Christmas was a mere two days away, and Stiles had thoroughly isolated himself from everyone he knew and loved. The package was unexpected, but he was happy for it and recognized its contents by its shape: a guitar. A sleek black acoustic Fender, once he opened it, so nicely polished Stiles could see his reflection in the body.

The included card read:

_Saw you didn’t take yours on the plane. Figured you’d want to play while out of town. Merry Christmas, Stiles. xoxo, Adam_

 

 **To: Adam  
** **got your package. now i feel like an asshole. i didn’t even think of christmas. i’m so sorry.**

 

It was a blatant lie. Well, the apology wasn’t.

Stiles and Adam had gone gift shopping on Black Friday after fucking in a bed that wasn’t either of theirs. Stiles bought for everyone back home, packed the gifts up and shipped them to Beacon Hills with his name on the box. He just hadn’t considered Adam. Because he and Adam weren’t a _thing_. They fucked. That was it.

And then this.

Stiles’ phone rang moments later, and Adam was laughing. “But do you like it, though?” he asked.

“Of course, dude. It’s beautiful. I love it.”

“Then that’s all that matters.” They were quiet on the line for a few moment before Adam took a breath and asked, “I didn’t cross some sort of line, did I?”

Stiles swallowed thickly, then said, “Honestly? You probably did, but I’m having such a shitty time here, I kinda don’t care.”

“What’s going on?” Adam sounded so concerned Stiles’ breath stuttered. “And I can always arrange for it to be picked up and returned. We can pretend it never happened.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Stiles chuckled, though his eyes burned uncharacteristically. He sniffed and scrubbed his face. “Things aren’t how I thought they’d be. Everything—everything’s so fucked. I just wanna come back to New York.”

“You’ll be back soon enough,” Adam’s warm voice assured him from thousands of miles away. “And if it’s really that bad, I’ve got a nice bottle of Cognac with your name on it when you get back.”

“Thanks, Adam.”

 

###

 

Through some method Stiles neither knew nor cared, it had been determined that Erica and Boyd would host the Pack’s Christmas celebration. So on December 24th, Stiles showered and dressed and loaded his gifts for everyone in the back of the Jeep. The bright wrapping paper with reindeer and snowmen was a stark contrast to the bloodied machetes and dirty herb-filled duffle, but this was his life now, and he didn’t let himself dwell on it.

Cora and Lydia decided to go together and, well, Stiles was happy for it. He didn’t know if it was stress, or something else—maybe his newfound magic—but his nightmares plagued him with a vengeance. It left his nights sleepless and his body exhausted with shadows under his eyes. But with what time he should have been sleeping, he researched his abilities and texted Adam.

Stiles drove alone to Derek’s building, where the alpha housed his pack.

Standing in the middle of Erica and Boyd’s beautifully decorated living room, soothed by Frank Sinatra crooning carols, glittering tinsel and flickering icicle lights, facing a twelve foot Christmas tree covered in hand-made and store-bought ornaments, Stiles reached his decision.

Erica and Boyd flirted over tending the sweet ham baking in the oven, their fleeting touches sweet and their bodies arcing towards each other like opposing currents. Cora kept close to Lydia, topping off her eggnog every chance she got. They exchanged sugar-covered kisses and smeared icing on each other’s faces while they decorated cookies. Scott and Kira were busy gluing eyes and colored cotton balls to candy canes to make festive reindeer, Kira occasionally brandishing her cane as a katana when Scott kept eating their project. And Derek…

Derek was dressed in a dark green sweater and soft-looking jeans. He cradled hot chocolate in his hands, the marshmallows visible over the rim of his mug. When Kira slapped a pair of antlers on his head, he just laughed, and he only grumbled marginally when Cora tried to shove a hideously iced sugar cookie into his mouth.

Stiles was surrounded by a pack, _his_ pack, if Derek was to be believed, but his role was still undefined, uncertain. Dinner, cookies, crafts—all of it was handled in his absence. And if he couldn’t find a place during a Christmas party, how could he find a place in anything else? There was a distance between him and everyone around him that he wasn’t sure how to bridge. When it dawned on him, somewhere between the group Skype call with Allison and Isaac and watching Erica fuss over dinner in her Christmas apron, the inevitability of it struck him like lightening. How Derek slid easily into his space and pressed a warm mug into his hands only solidified Stiles’ certainty.

When Braeden arrived, Stiles was formally introduced with Scott awkwardly at the helm. Stiles kept it cordial, tried to be as warm and welcoming to her as he was capable. But when she talked to Stiles, it was clear _he_ was the outsider. She wasn’t impressed, and made no attempt to hide it, even going so far as to scoff in either Scott or Derek’s directions whenever Stiles spoke. She moved around the apartment with a familiarity that unsettled Stiles, helping herself to Cora and Lydia’s cookies and Derek’s pot of hot chocolate. She sat on the edge of a counter and engaged with everyone like she belonged there.

Maybe the role of ‘helpful human’ was already filled.

He found Derek’s eyes across the living room, found the alpha watching him with careful concern, before quickly looking away.

He scratched his tattoo through his sweater and knew he’d have to get another once he returned to New York.

Stiles tried to maintain the momentum of his façade, but he was still recovering from his injuries. His smiles grew tired, and his enthusiasm dwindled.  He left before opening presents under the guise of drowsiness from his pain medication, and a general need for rest.

When footsteps on pavement followed him through the parking lot to his Jeep, Stiles was surprised to find it was Lydia and not Derek.

“You have a lot of nerve pulling this crap on Christmas,” Lydia said, hands on her hips.

“I’m not pulling anything,” Stiles sighed. “I’m tired. I got my ass handed to me by a monster a few days ago. Christmas or not, I think I’m okay to lie in bed and try to sleep this off.” He tried to smile for her, to inject some sincerity into his eyes. “Besides, shouldn’t you be up there celebrating with Cora? I’m exhausted. I’m just ruining your good time.”

Lydia didn’t seem convinced, but she did seem to reach some sort of understanding the longer she stared at him.

“I get that things are kinda weird right now, with Cora over all the time and…everything,” and Stiles found it remarkable for Lydia to sound sheepish. “But we’re dealing with this once we get back to New York, okay? Seriously.”

“Sure,” he conceded. “I’ll see you at home.”

She let him go without further argument.

 

###

 

Christmas morning, Stiles went through the motions, though sincerity occasionally flared.

_Coffee._

Stiles added cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to the grounds before brewing, just like his mother had. He leaned against the counter and watched the coffee pot fill through heavy-lidded eyes. The scent wafted through the house, and eventually brought Lydia and his father downstairs.

_Presents._

Caffeine thrumming through his tired limbs, Stiles doled out the presents from beneath the tree, and picked through the candy in his stocking while Lydia and his dad opened their gifts.

Lydia loved her hand-painted coffee mug, the scarf and mitten set, and the CD he recorded for her. Her eyes welled with tears, and he practically crushed her against him when she hugged him. He’d shut her out and pushed her away, too, and maybe once they were back in New York, he could sit down and tell her why he’d hurt her like that. But for now, for Christmas, he just held her when she crawled into his lap and buried his face in her strawberry-blond curls for a few moments.

His dad loved his gifts, too—a gag vampire slaying kit, a quick-and-easy-healthy-meals cookbook, and a framed vinyl single of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye’s _You Are Everything._ It was a song Stiles could recall them—his parents—singing to each other when he was little, a song his mother sometimes sang just the chorus of to him. _You are everything, and everything is you._ His dad would fake Gaye’s rough soul, and his mom would pinch her face to hit Ross’ high notes. Stiles babbled along with what words he could remember.

Stiles and his father both ignored his dad’s glassy eyes when they hugged.

Stiles’ gifts from Lydia included a stack of ancient looking books they would enjoy deciphering; a collector’s set of Lord of the Rings, complete with three strands of her ruby locks which had Stiles doubled over laughing; and a subscription to a sheet music website because she was ‘sick of hearing Wonderwall.’

“You have gifts from the pack in my room. And Derek. When you’re ready,” she whispered. She didn’t expect an answer from him, and he was grateful for it.

From his father, Stiles got a new baseball bat, a hand-me-down worn leather jacket from his dad’s early days on the force, and…

“Guitar picks?” Stiles grinned, watching his father as he stood from his chair and disappeared somewhere deeper in the house. “Daaaaaad,” and he tried not to laugh. Because the other two gifts were so perfect: for the longest time, Stiles was the boy who ran with wolves armed with a bat. And the jacket was from his father’s early years on the force; Stiles had been lusting after since he was a preteen and could hardly fit in it. But the guitar picks? Really?

But then his dad reemerged from the shadows of the hall closet and Stiles’ heart dropped into his stomach.

He knew that case. He knew that shape. He knew what was inside.

It was his mother’s guitar.

“Holy shit,” he murmured.

“Merry Christmas, son,” the Sheriff said, presenting it with a half-hearted flourish.

“Are you serious?”

“She’d want you to have it.”

When they hugged a second time, they both cried.

_Run._

Usually to his mother’s grave, away from the emptiness her absence resonated poignantly on Christmas morning. The Sheriff joined him the first few years, but eventually left Stiles to his own devices, to his own time with Claudia’s headstone. This time, though…this time…

When Melissa and Scott arrived later that afternoon, Stiles stuck around long enough to exchange gifts; and it was just long enough for Scott to corner him in the living room while everyone else migrated to the kitchen.

“Stiles, we need to talk,” Scott said, sincerity bleeding from his puppy eyes.

With a sigh, Stiles said, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Dude, things have been fucked for a long time. Things have been fucked since you announced you were going to NYU and taking Lydia with you. There’s plenty to talk about. And it needs to happen. The pack—”

“Yours or Derek’s?” Stiles bit.

“The pack, Stiles. Our pack. We’re one pack.”

Stiles shook his head. “I’m not your pack. Lydia is not your pack. My pack business deals with Derek, not you.”

“What the hell, Stiles?” Scott asked, wounded anger marring his normally kind face. “We’re supposed to be brothers. We should be able to talk about this like adults.”

“Dude, Cain and Abel were brothers. Michael and Lucifer were brothers. You see where I’m going with this? And before you even assume anything ridiculous, I have no intention of killing you in all your—” Stiles made a waving gesture to Scott’s body. “—true alpha-ness, or starting some sort of turf war.”

“Stiles, you did some sort of weird darach magic the other night and have been shutting everyone out for months,” Scott said, growling the desperate plea. “Derek wouldn’t let me go near you—we almost had an alpha stand-off over your unconscious body, and I wanted to rip his throat out. Then I—I _shoved_ you and—we really really need to sit down and talk this shit out. It’s too much. It’s been building for a long time, and we need to handle it.”

Stiles sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, have you ever once considered that maybe I can’t or don’t want to talk about whatever it is that may or may not be going on? Have you ever once thought about what I might be going through after being a meat puppet for a thousand year old evil spirit, and dealing with werewolves, and whatever the fuck? We weren’t all given the Gift of the Bite. We can’t all muscle through things.”

“If you’re going through Hell—”

“I did keep going!” Stiles barked. “I kept going until I couldn’t fucking go anymore, okay? You were stubborn and stupid and inconsiderate in fucking high school, and instead of handling what problems you should have handled in a pragmatic way, you naively believed whatever you wanted and that everyone could be saved instead of listening to me, to Derek, to Peter. And you wanna know what happened? You almost killed me several times. You almost killed Allison several times. You let Allison be turned against us and Derek be vilified because you wouldn’t tell Allison her mother tried to kill you. You used Derek to give Gerard the Bite—against Derek’s will. Boyd and Erica and Cora were kidnapped and tortured for months, and you know who helped Derek try to find them? Me. Me and Isaac. Where the fuck were you? Aiden and Allison nearly died at the hands of the Oni. Because you couldn’t get your self-righteous head out of your ass and handle these things like a fucking adult, so many people suffered. And maybe I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. Maybe I’m still trying to figure out how a True Alpha can have so much fucking blood on his hands.”

“I did everything I could to do the right thing, Stiles. I did everything I could to keep people safe. Sometimes there is no right answer, and sometimes people get hurt, but I’ve done everything I can to—”

“No, fuck you, Scott,” Stiles said, taking a step back. “The right thing isn’t always what you deem it to be. Sometimes the right thing _is_ killing someone. Because there’s nothing my dad can do as a human cop to incarcerate or prosecute a werewolf serial killer, or a darach serial killer, or any type of supernatural creature that might have a human side but is on a killing spree, because he’s _human_ and they’re _supernatural monsters_. They don’t abide by the justices of Man, Scott. They can’t. You want to know how Peter got away with Laura’s murder? He killed her as a wolf. _He tore her in half, and Derek found the piece with his sister’s face._ You can’t prosecute an animal, Scott. That’s why Derek was released when we wrongly accused him. Or do you not remember that?” Stiles paused, took a moment to breathe. His words were rushed, ran together the longer he spoke, the quicker his heart pounded in his chest. His vision tunneled, and he was breathing hard. But Scott was stunned silent, and Stiles couldn’t stop. “If you’re going to play protector to Beacon Hills, you need to learn how to neutralize threats. And if someone can’t be reasoned with, if someone has already maimed and killed several people, there is no justice beyond death. That aswang Lydia killed? It has a human form. It can feel human emotions and marry and have a family and be neighborly—its neighbors are actually exempt from its hunting quarry because of the relations it builds with them. There’s a phrase, ‘better an aswang than a thief,’ because an aswang is a better neighbor than a thief would be. But you wanna know what else? It killed children. It ate their organs. It murdered people. I pumped it full of wolfsbane because it deserved to die. Just like Gerard deserved to die. Just like Deucalion and Jennifer Blake deserved to die. Just like so many other people you let live but should have killed.”

“And what about you, Stiles?” Scott asked.

“What about me?” he demanded, fisting his hands at his sides.  
              
“What about the Nogitsune? What about you?” Scott’s normally warm brown eyes were dark and cold, distant and dangerous the way they were just before he threw mistletoe at Jennifer Blake. But Stiles was too familiar with Scott’s savagery to be intimidated. “You know if you turned, your eyes would be blue.”

“They would be,” Stiles said, and if his heartbeat gave away how he felt about it, he didn’t care. “I’m a killer. I’m a monster. A thousand year old evil fox spirit possessed my weak human mind and had me maim and murder and torture countless people through accidents and traps and cruelty. And you should have killed me.”

The moment the words escaped him, Stiles wanted to take them back. He knew they were bad, he knew it was the elephant in the room, he knew there was no going back after saying it. But he’d said it anyway. And he stood there watching Scott’s expression slowly crumble into something like betrayal, something like genuine heartbreak, something like what Stiles was doing to everyone lately. It was Stiles twisting the sword in Scott’s gut all over again.

“I can’t talk about this,” Stiles offered, dropping his gaze and stepping even further away from Scott. “I can’t deal with any of this. I’m still not in a good place. I still can’t…process all of this. I need to go. I’ve gotta go.” He shoved passed Scott and grabbed his keys and the duffle bag he left sitting by the door.

It was fine. He was going to go out anyway.

 

###

 

When Stiles reached Derek’s building, he took the elevator. Its cranking gears and tired hum alerted every wolf in the building of his presence, but he didn’t care. There would be nothing left to hide after today. Today—specifically—he’d lay his cards on the table. All of them.

_“What’s this?”_

_“A key.”_

_Stiles scoffed. “Obviously. To what?”_

_“My loft.”_

He fumbled with the ring. He hadn’t used it in over a year, had left it forgotten somewhere between the spare key to Lydia’s car and the key to his gun safe. But what he’d had and known as the key to Derek’s loft was still such as it slipped easily into the lock and turned—he hadn’t changed the locks. It grinded loudly, and the accompanying screech was always obnoxious, but Stiles opened the door with false confidence and let it slide shut behind him with a resounding clang. To his surprise, it was empty.

Which…shouldn’t, actually, have been all that surprising.

Derek always hated his birthday.

“Derek?”

Instead of answering, the werewolf descended the spiral staircase from where Stiles knew his office and bedroom spaces to be, and measured his approach. He calculated what might be considered too much space or not enough, and hovered expectantly somewhere in what he perceived as the middle. Meanwhile, Stiles just lingered near the entryway, with the door only a few paces behind him, easily traversed in a possible panic.

“Merry Christmas, Stiles,” Derek said, though it sounded a little forced, like he maybe didn’t know if he should say it.

“Happy birthday, Derek,” Stiles answered reflexively, and hoped his smile wasn’t a grimace. But with Derek standing there in a long-sleeve Henley and sweatpants, the loft painfully barren of holiday cheer, Stiles suddenly wondered if this was a grave mistake. He was clearly disturbing him, intruding on whatever solitude the rest of his pack had the sense to respect, but Stiles, stupidly, didn’t.  “Um, if now’s a bad time, I could always…come by later?”

“It’s not a bad time,” Derek said, shaking his head and waving him off. He left Stiles in the living area to rummage around in the kitchen. “Want some tea or something? It’s chilly outside.”

“…yeah,” Stiles said, tentatively. “That’d be great. Thanks.” He kept his duffle slung over his shoulder as he followed Derek, hoisting himself onto the edge of the island that also served as a breakfast bar. He dropped the bag on the countertop beside him and kicked his dangling feet. “I, uh…I got you something.”

“We exchanged gifts yesterday,” Derek said, putting the kettle to boil and fishing for tea bags in one of his cupboards.

Sometimes Stiles wondered if Derek was intentionally obtuse. Though given the tension humming between them, maybe Derek was just as unsure as Stiles was. “For your birthday,” he clarified. Stiles watched the muscles of Derek’s back ripple beneath the soft-looking fabric of his shirt, and was overcome with the sense memory of raking his nails down those fluid planes. He cleared his throat and busied himself with digging through his bag to withdraw the two wrapped packages. He left them on the counter for when Derek turned around.

When the werewolf did, with a mug ready for tea in each hand, he stopped short, eyebrows raised and head tilted a bit like a puppy’s.

“Open them,” Stiles said, pushing the presents closer—the wrapping paper patterned with spring colors and bright, curled ribbon. When he smiled, it was a little easier this time, pleased with Derek’s surprise. Stiles wasn’t confident about much, but he was damn sure Derek would like his gift. And maybe it was okay for some habits to die hard.

Derek set the mugs down and slid Stiles’ near him—his favorite mug, the one where constellations appeared on the sides once the ceramic was heated and holy shit, why did Derek even still have this thing?—then reached for the smaller of the two gifts. He extended a claw to cleanly tear through the tape, and took his time unfolding the paper.

“Dude, come on. Wrapping paper was meant to be torn. Tear. It. Up.”

Derek scoffed, but not unkindly. “Don’t call me dude,” he said out of habit. “And maybe I enjoy the anticipation.”

“I swear to God, Derek, I kinda need to know if I did good, so please just put me out of my misery and open the damn present.”

Laughing, Derek complied, and slashed through the remaining packaging. “A French press?” And he was curious, like he couldn’t understand why Stiles would get him such a thing. When it suddenly dawned on him, he tore open the second package quickly. “You got me coffee…”

“Not just any coffee,” Stiles said with a smirk. He leaned into Derek’s space and tapped the logo on the bag of whole roasted beans—vacuumed sealed and air-tight so werewolf senses wouldn’t ruin the surprise. “Straight from New York.”

_“It’s the best coffee you’ll ever have. Laura and I went there all the time,” Derek told him while they lay in bed, a tangle of sweaty, tired limbs. Stiles was seventeen. “The city is absolutely amazing. I’ll take you one day. I’ll show you.”_

_Stiles had hummed, nuzzled closer, and made him promise._

_Derek did._

Derek’s kaleidoscope eyes opened that infinitesimal bit Stiles knew to be genuine shock, not just something Derek didn’t expect, but something _meaningful_ Derek didn’t expect. It had happened the first time they’d kissed, the first time Stiles agreed to sleep with him, like Derek couldn’t believe he was getting something he wanted. “Stiles…how did you…?”

“I pay attention.”

“I thought the place went out of business.”

“Bought out,” Stiles conceded. “But…I know a guy who knew a guy, and I found out who had taken them. Turns out they still sell under the old name, so…yeah. Figured you’d like it. I know you already have a grinder, so I got you bags of the whole bean stuff. I’ll send them to you on the reg once I’m back in school.”

“I…Stiles, this is…this is incredible. I can’t…just…”

“You like it?”

“Love it. Thank you.”

When Derek leaned close, it was so fluid, so natural, Stiles almost forgot to pull away from him. How many times had Stiles sat on this very counter and let Derek kiss him? Over cups of coffee, over dinner, over Stiles ignoring his calculous homework, over Derek bandaging Stiles’ wounds. Too many to count, too many for the aborted gesture not to hurt with its incompletion. Instead, Derek stopped just short of too close, and brushed the tip of his nose against Stiles’ temple. Still affectionate, but more wolf than human—less of something Stiles could use to ignite an indignant fire. But Derek remained close, and though he still wore a grateful smile—grateful for the gift, Stiles told himself—it was pinched at the edges, forced in ways Stiles, intimately familiar with Derek’s genuine joy, could tell.

The sudden clench in his chest, the wash of longing—Stiles barely kept his hands from reaching out to Derek.

“I’ll be your emissary,” he murmured, soft in the small space between them.

Derek went still, and watched him warily…which was the opposite of what Stiles had hoped for when he decided to come to the loft. On his birthday. While bearing a poignant birthday gift.

The kettle whistled.

Derek studied Stiles for a few beats, stripping him bare with his eyes, probably studying the rhythm of Stiles’ heart in search of a tell-tale stutter. Then he turned to pull the kettle off the burner and poured steaming water into their mugs. “Why?” he asked, watching the tea steep.

“Why?” Stiles repeated dumbly.

“Why do you want to be my emissary?”

“Because your pack needs one, and my spark is fulfilling that need.” But Stiles knew he could just parrot Derek’s words back to him. Not only was it not good enough, but Derek deserved better from him. “Because, like, I might not be the best emissary out there, and fuck all if I know anything about druidism, and I might screw up and people might get hurt, but at least I trust myself not to maliciously hurt you or the pack, or willingly let the town fall into ruin. I love my wolves, you all know that. And if you bring in some random person, the same can’t be said about them, no matter how steady their heartbeat or how good their poker face.”

 _Like Jennifer’s_.

Stiles didn’t know what could have driven Derek into her arms, let him take her to his bed outside of Stiles’ own ineptitude. It still stung, even over a year later. Stiles shrugged then, tired not to take how Derek kept his eyes on their steaming mugs to heart. And even if Derek was ignoring half of what he said, Stiles kind of deserved it. “So,” he continued, plowing through the building awkward tension, “I’ll be your emissary. If you still want me, that is.”

“Always wanted you,” Derek breathed, a little strained.

Stiles smiled then, and his cheeks warmed. “You don’t have to act like you’ve changed,” he said, dropping his gaze and nudging Derek with his knee. “I know I’ve been skittish and kind of a dick, but I’ve made up my mind.”

“That’s what you think this has been?” Derek asked, meeting Stiles’ gaze with an arched and accusing eyebrow. “Some sort of seduction?” Shit, he looked _offended_. Had Stiles misread this whole thing?

With a nervous laugh, Stiles said, “Um, yeah? Pretty much?” He watched Derek build the walls of a blank expression brick by brick, though the underlying hurt was still visible through the cracks. It reminded Stiles of when they’d dragged Jennifer into the hospital elevator, how Derek looked like he was barely keeping it together, torn between drowning in self-loathing and killing her. Stiles forced another laugh. “Like, you asked to kiss me after you found me in the woods, and then you, like, took care of me right after the aswang attacked, and then, you found me in the woods again and helped me and held my hand, and you were really sweet yesterday at the party and…I just…you didn’t have to go through that to convince me to take the job, okay? I’m not gonna let the pack be at risk because of whatever bullshit happened between us. I just had to, like, come to terms with it all. You don’t have to make it up to me. I get that maybe I didn’t give the impression of—”

“None of that was an act.”

“…what?” Stiles stared at Derek with the beginnings of a pout, because yes, Stiles had been an asshole, but this sort of deception was unnecessarily cruel. Not after everything that happened between them, not after everything Stiles had been fighting to somehow be okay with it. His chuckle was nervous, and he dropped his gaze. He scratched at the bandages on his throat with anxious fingers Derek halted in a sudden and gentle grip.

The werewolf slid his fingers between Stiles’, and held his hand in a sure grip. “Let them heal,” he gently scolded. And he leeched the faint pain Stiles’ fidgeting had flared.

“Derek,” Stiles sighed, choked off as he swallowed. “Derek,” he tried again, “Cut the crap, man, alright? We don’t have to play this game anymore. It’s—it’s hard, okay?”

“You don’t believe I’m serious. About you. You don’t believe I’ve changed.”

“About me being your emissary, maybe. You’re an alpha. You need an emissary for your pack. But this?” Stiles shook his head and pull his hand from Derek’s grasp. “I want to believe you when you say you’ve changed. But no. No way. Not after everything that happened. And, like, if I’m gonna be okay with doing this whole…thing, I can’t get myself fucked up over you.”

Derek’s jaw tightened, and it was nice to see something besides soft placation in the alpha’s face. He pulled away to stand in the middle of the kitchen with his arms folded over his chest. “What, exactly, are you referring to? Because the more I think about it, the less I know. Are you talking about the alpha pack that tried to not only recruit me, but slaughter my betas? Or are you talking about the spirit that terrorized this town wearing your face? Maybe I should go back further, to the kanima that was controlled by some nutjob who stalked Allison, or how you and Scott kept ignoring me when a rogue alpha was on the loose? Because if memory serves, somewhere in the summer before your junior year, we fell into bed together and stuck through it all and…” He stopped, not quite able to maintain his anger, but continued anyway. “…and it was good.”

And fuck, it had been. It had been so good with Derek.

Lazy Sunday mornings where they shared sleepy kisses before making breakfast together. Afternoons spent with Stiles studying, stretched on the couch with his feet in Derek’s lap. Steamy romps in the backseat of the Camaro parked out in the preserve. They’d learned to move around each other while researching the alpha pack, and learned to move with each other when they tumbled into bed later at night. Stiles had become accustomed to the warm press of Derek’s body at his back when he slept, and the easy affection that bled between them. A touch here, a kiss there. Derek nuzzling his temple, and Stiles baring his neck for him. It had been so…domestic. And Stiles _ached_ to have it back, to have _Derek_ back.

But that traitorous ache had driven Stiles to accept Derek after the alpha had disappeared. A yawning hole in Stiles’ chest grew with each ignored call, each passing day of silence, and the moment Derek reappeared, Stiles had all but thrown himself at him. Let himself be used, tried to pretend things were okay. But they hadn’t been. They weren’t. Derek had chosen someone else, and then _left_.

“How about the darach?” Stiles sneered. “Not only did she kidnap and almost kill my father, she almost killed Lydia, and Cora, and Danny. Oh, and _you were fucking her_.” Stiles had never said it to Derek’s face, had only sobbed it into Lydia’s shoulder because it was stupid of him to be hurt over it. He and Derek had never been official, and Derek had never given Stiles any indication they were. They weren’t boyfriends or lovers or partners or…or anything really, except two guys who shared several brushes with death and sometimes fucked to celebrate the fact they were alive. Because none of it ever meant anything to Derek, and Stiles knew it. But Stiles had always been drawn to Derek, had fallen into his gravity and was helpless to the slavery of his orbit. For so long, everything always came back to Derek.

Stiles saw Derek for what he was, not what Scott wanted Derek to be. And Stiles could never really pull away from him. He always asked after him. He always went back for him. He could never leave him. Until Derek left him first.

Derek took a breath and his shoulders sagged. “Stiles, I…there was always Lydia, and Heather and—”

“No, fuck you!” Stiles growled with an edge of hysteria. “You don’t get to say her name. Don’t you dare fucking say her name.”

The werewolf’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t argue as Stiles kept speaking.

“Because the darach killed Heather. The psychotic bitch you were fucking killed Heather, so you don’t get to say her name, or act like you know anything about her and me, got it? I’d known her since we were in diapers, our mothers were friends, and she died because I…because…if I’d only…” Stiles took a shuddering breath and scrubbed his face. “Fuck, she wanted to sleep with me. She wanted me to be her first, and, and I left because I didn’t have a condom—you and I hadn’t needed them—and I honestly didn’t think she’d want me that way and…”

“So you were going to sleep with her?” It wasn’t quite an accusation, but it could have been, once upon a time. And Stiles didn’t miss the _almost_ in it.

“That’s not the point, Derek! You’d already fucked off to God knows where!” Stiles spat. “After the bank, you stopped returning my calls, you—”

“I’d just found my baby sister, Stiles. I had no idea Cora was even alive, let alone—”

“I ID’d the body!” Stiles shouted.

Derek fell silent, his jaw snapping shut with an audible click.

Because finding someone you’d known for years dead was so much heavier than finding someone you’d thought was dead for years actually alive. Because, somehow, Stiles thought they were comparable. They had to be, or Derek had even more room to not give a shit.

Stiles shoulders shook, and he pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands to bury his face against the fabric. Melissa was the only one who knew, a secret between them for the protocols and laws they’d broken. Stiles, a minor, the sheriff’s son. Melissa, a nurse showing some kid an unidentified dead body. It had been Heather lying on the slab, her face milky pale in death, her throat slashed. Stiles could have saved her, could have made sure she wasn’t sacrifice material. Something so simple, so easy, and if only he’d been smart enough to do it, Heather might still be alive.

He couldn’t blame her death on a fox spirit wearing his face. No, Heather’s blood was on his hands, because he hadn’t kept a condom in his wallet. He never bothered, because he’d had a steady bedmate in Derek Hale.

“I lost Heather and I almost lost my dad,” he said, the words occasionally stuttered with a hitched breath. “Scott, Allison, and I almost became orphans. Lydia, Cora, and Danny almost died. So many other people did. And somewhere in that clusterfuck, you cut me off, start sleeping with someone else, then disappear for months without a word. You just fucked off into the wild blue yonder with no calls, no texts, not even a fucking letter or note.” Stiles’ breath was shaky, his vision blurring with tears he couldn’t stop, no matter how much it bruised his pride. He had a right to be hurt about the brush off, but it was so close to heartbreak, Stiles worried Derek wouldn’t be able tell the difference. Stiles sure as hell couldn’t. “And then you come back and…fuck, how could I say no to you?”

“Stiles, I’m sorry,” Derek murmured. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know about Heather, and until you and Scott told me, I didn’t know about Jennifer. I didn’t know, Stiles, and I’m sorry.”

“You had me in the palm of your hand, Derek, and why’d you have to go and lock me out after I’d let you in? Fuck, I was there that summer. Didn’t that prove anything? How you could trust me?”

Derek dropped his gaze. “All you had to do was stay, Stiles.”

“What?” Stiles asked, incredulous. “After everything, you wanted me to stay? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Instead of running off to New York, yeah,” Derek bit, jaw tight with restrained anger. _Finally!_ It felt good to finally get a rise out of him. “We should have talked about this sooner. We could have—”

“Could have what, Derek? There was nothing to do! You threw it all away! You threw away whatever we had for Jennifer fucking Blake.” Stiles bit his lip to stop it from trembling, then said, “Do you have any idea how hard this has been? Seeing you bleeding over Skype, being back in town?”

“I came back,” Derek snapped. Stiles didn’t know if the unsaid _for you_ was Derek’s intention or his own wishful thinking. “ Let me remind you, Stiles, this was what you wanted. _You_ ended it. Us.” He started pacing the length of the kitchen like an anxious and caged animal, the pull of his brows and mouth a glower that barely repressed a snarl. And though his eyes flickered every so often, Stiles wasn’t threatened.

“You were all I wanted, Derek! You!” Stiles shouted. And then, softer, “But not like this.”

The werewolf stopped, intrigued. “‘Not like this’?”

Stiles smirked, mirthless. “You think I’d just get over how you fucked around with a darach, disappeared, and then wanted to fuck around with me once you got back? I tried. Derek, I tried to forget about it. People like you always want back the love they push aside, but I can’t just let myself be some—I loved you, Derek.”

“Loved.” His voice was flat, his expression guarded.

Stiles laughed bitterly and wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Yes, dumbass. I loved you.”

“Back then?”

“Did you honestly not know?”

Derek was silent.

Stiles scoffed and shook his head. He jumped down from his perch on the counter and leaned against its edge. “You know I could smell her on you, the few times we hooked up while you were seeing her. Jennifer’s perfume. And sometimes she’d come into class, walk passed my desk, and your cologne would waft from her skirt. It was like she knew. Like she was flaunting it. Scott wanted to kill you.” He scrubbed his face. “Anyway, it’s in the past, and it was my own stupidity to, yeah…so just...” He took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, briefly, collecting himself. “It’s hard seeing you and not having you, so I’d really appreciate it if you just…stopped trying to, like…win me over, alright?”

When Stiles looked up, Derek was close, bracketing him against the edge of the counter with his physical mass. His jewel-bright eyes were so intense, searching, expression pinched just so. “Don’t look at me like that, Sourwolf,” Stiles said softly. He reached up with a trembling hand to smooth out the crease between Derek’s brows with his thumb, then skated his fingertips down the side of his face to cup his jaw. He traced the edge of Derek’s stubble. “It won’t be that bad, I promise. I can still be a good emissary for you.”

Shifting closer, pressing against Stiles with his hips until the counter dug into the small of Stiles’ back, Derek huffed a quiet laugh. He covered Stiles’ hand on his face with his own, then brought it away to kiss his knuckles. “You could still be a good everything for me.”

“Derek, please…” Stiles instinctively tilted his head back when Derek leaned in and ran his nose along his throat, felt the hot press of lips through the gauze of his bandages. Derek laced their fingers, then grabbed Stiles by the hip with his other hand. He lifted and Stiles pushed until Stiles was seated, once again, on the countertop, and Derek fit himself between his knees. A familiar dance Stiles still knew the steps to, could never quite forget the steps to. Warmth radiated against his side where Derek’s hand slid beneath his clothes to touch skin, and shivers ran down his spine where Derek nuzzled his temple. “Christ,” Stiles breathed, mouth dry, “just kiss me already.” He snatched his hand from Derek’s to grab him by the nape and haul him in, a movement more of Derek lunging than Stiles urging.

A soft sound of relief, of finally, rumbled from the wolf’s throat when their lips met, chaste and gentle. Stiles was the first to move, to savor to taste of Derek’s mouth against his, because it felt right and it felt like home and it felt like everything he’d ever wanted and it hurt so so fucking good. He whimpered between one caress of lips and another, and Derek pulled him to the edge of the counter, balanced between a sharp line of granite and Derek’s hips. Then Derek kissed him harder, licked the seam of his lips until Stiles gasped and Derek devoured him.

Broad hands went for Stiles’ belt, then easily popped the fly of his jeans. Stiles felt seventeen again, alight with want he’d never known and consumed with _DerekDerekDerek_ , heart in hand and offering it to the werewolf with every touch of skin.

“Got you,” Derek breathed against Stiles’ lips, and Stiles must have chanted his name aloud. “Always got you.” And the wolf’s hand was sliding between rough denim and sharp zipper teeth.

This. _This_ was what Stiles had been missing. This was what caused the gaping hole in his chest and his sense of self, because who was Stiles if he wasn’t at Derek’s side? He was the Boy Who Ran With Wolves. This was what he’d tried to replace with New York and dye, piercings and tattoos. And Adam.

Fuck, _Adam_.

“Fuck, Stiles.” Derek rubbed the hard line of his cock against Stiles’ thigh, his grip on Stiles’ hip tightening to bring them impossibly closer. He groaned and nipped at the cords of Stiles’ neck, then down to what of his clavicle his loose t-shirt revealed.

Stiles buried his hand in Derek’s dark hair, and his breath hitched, the spell broken.

Because there were guitars and coffee and red wine kisses; black framed glasses and caramel eyes and tender touches; texts at two in the morning and sharing scarves beneath fresh snowfall and hidden meetings between bookshelves.

Stiles swallowed thickly. “Derek,” he murmured, his voice rough to his own ears, rough in a way only Derek ever got it. Derek growled and sucked a bruise just beneath the collar of his shirt, and Stiles hissed. “Fuck,” he gasped, hips bucking.

The wolf hummed.

“Derek,” he said again, lightly tugging the alpha away from him by the hair.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked, finally getting the hint. His pupils were blown when he met Stiles’ gaze, lips swollen and pink, slick with spit. Concern quickly brought him back from the heady _finally together_ Stiles felt, too. Stiles got it, he really did, and couldn’t imagine how debauched the pair of them must have looked.

“I—I can’t,” he stammered. “I’m sorry, but I—”

“What?” and there was a note of hurt in Derek’s voice, confusion quickly turning to something too akin to fear for Stiles to bear.

“I can’t do this,” Stiles said, despite how unsteady his voice was. “I’m seeing someone.”

Derek’s eyes widened, and he looked so betrayed Stiles wanted to cry.

“In New York,” Stiles continued, and his throat tightened and his eyes burned. “I have someone in New York.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited as much as I could, but I also wanted to post it as soon as possible. Please feel free to mention any typos, as I may have missed a few.
> 
> I feel as though the last section of this chapter is really rough. After some time away from it, I think I managed to smooth it out, but any suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


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